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'PT^
"TP**^*"
N
^"i^;-^
H O'SiJiSi-r D'iJjiiVJ,
THE
WORKS
OF
ROBERT BURN8
CONTAINING HIS LIFE ;
BY
JOHN LOCKHART, ESQ.
THE POETRY AND CORRESPONDENCE OF DR. CURRIES EDITION;
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF THE POET BY HIMSELF, GILRFRT BURNS,
PROFESSOR STEWART, AND OTHERH ;
ESSAY ON SCOTTISH POETRY,
INCLUDING
THE POETRY OF BURNS, BY DR. CURRIE ;
Hutnn'B Songs,
FROM Johnson's *' musical museum," and "Thompson's select mklodifs;"
SELECT SCOTTISH SONGS OF THE OTHER POETS,
FROM THE BEST COLLECTIONS,
WITH BURNS'S REMARKS.
FORMING, IN ONE WORK, THE TRUEST EXHIBITION OF THE MAN AND TlIK I'URT
Ain> THE FULLEST EDITION OF HIS
POETRY AND PROSE WRITINGS HITHERTO PUBLISHED.
NEW-YORK:
PUBLISHED BY WILUAM PEARSON, 60, CLIFF-STREET ;
AND SOLD BY ALL THE PRINCIPAL BOOKSELLERS IN
THE UNITED STATES.
1835
00
NOTICE
TO
THE PRESENT EDITION.
Iv the Dedication of tlie Life of Burns by Dr. Currie to his friend Cap»
tain Graham Moore, the learned Doctor tliiis expresses himself as to his
Editorial office: — " The tas!c u-a-5 bcs;.'t with considerable dilHculties, and
«* men of establislied reputation naturally declined an undertaking, to the
•* performance of which it was scarcely to be hoped that fi^encral approba-
** tion could be obtained by any e?:ertion of juJpncntor temper. To such
** an office my place of residence, my accustomed studies, and my occu-
** pations, were certainly little suited. l]ut the partiality of Mr. SjTne
«* thought me, in other respects, not unqualified ; and his solicitations,
•* joined to those of our excellent friend and relation, Mrs. Dunlcjp, and of
^ other friends of the family of the poet, I have not been able to resist,"
These sentences contain singular avowals. They are somehow apt to
suggest, what we have all heard before, that some are born to honour,
while others have honours thrust upon them. The Doctor's squcamishness
in favour of persons of catahlis/ied reputation^ who might be chary of a tick-
lish and impracticable, if not an odious task, is in ludicrous contrast with the
facts as they have since fallen out. Have we not seen the master-spirits
of the age, Scott, Byron, Campbell, honouring in Burns a kindred, if not a
fuperior genius, and, like passionate devotees, doing him homage? They
have all vohuitarily written of him ; and their recorded opinions evince no
feelings of shyness, but the reverse : they not only honour, but write as if
honoured by their theme. But let us leave the subject, by merely pointing
attention to the Doctor's mode of treatinc: it. as a decisive test of the evil
days and evil tongues amidst v.hich the poet had ihllen, and of the exis-
tence of that deplorable party-spirit, during which the facts involving his
character as a man, and his reputation as a poet, could neitlicr be cor-
rectly stated, nor fairly estimated.
It is true, Dr. Currie's Life contained invaluable materials. The poet's
auto-biographical letter to Dr. iMoore, — indeed the whole of his letters, —
the letters of his brother Gilbert, — of Professor Dugald Stewart, — of Mr.
Murdoch and of Mr. Syrae, and the other contributors, are invaluable ma-
terials. They form trulv the very backbone of the poet's life, as edited by
( M )
Dr. Currie. ThejT must ever be regarded As precious relicii ; and howeVef
largely they may be used as a part of a biographical work, they ought also
to be presented in the separate f«nn, entire ; for, taken in connection with
the general correspondence, they will be found to be curiously illustrative
of tlie then state of society in Scotland, and moreover to contain manifold
and undoubted proofs of the diffusion and actual existence, amongst Scots-
men of all degrees, of that literary talent, which had only been inferred,
hypothetically, from tlie nature of her elementary institutions.
We have no wish to detract from the high reputation of Dr. Currie.
It will however be remarked, that the biographical part of his labours,
•a stated by himself, involve little beyond the office of rcdacieur, — He
was not upon tlie spot, but living in England, and he was engaged with
professional avocations. If truth lies at the bottom of the well, he had nei-
ther the time nor the means to fish it up. Accordingly, it is not pretended
that he proceeded upon his own views, formed, on any single occasion, afler
a painful or pains-taking scrutiny ; or tliat, in giving a picture of the man
and the poet, he did more tlian present to the public what had come to
him entirely at second-hand, and upon the authority of others ; however
tunted or perverted the matter might have been, from the then general-
Ijr diseased state of the public mind. The Life of the poet, compiled under
such circumstances, was necessarily defective, — nay it did him positive in-
justice in various respects, particularly as to his personal habits and moral
diaractcr. These were represented with exaggerated and hideous features,
unwarranted by truth, and having their chief origin in the malignant viru-
lence of party strife.
The want of a Life of Bums, more correctly drawn, was long felt. This
is evident from the nature of the notices bestowed, in the periodicals of
the time, upon the successive works of Walker and Irving, who each of
them attempted the task of his biographer ; and upon the publications of
Cromek, who in his *' Ilcliques," and *' Select Scottish Songs," brought to
light much interesting and original matter. But these attempts only whet-
ted and kept alive the general feeling, which was not gratified in its full
extent untd nearly thirty years af^er the publication of Dr. Currie's work*
It was not until 1827 that a historian, worthy of the poet, appeared in the
person of Mr. John Lockhart, the son-in-law of Sir Walter Scott, and (ra-
ther a discordant title), Editor of the London Quarterly Review. He in
that year published a Life of Bums, both in the separate form, and as a part
of that excellent repertory known by the title of Constable's Miscellany.
It is only necessary to read Mr. Lockhart's Life of Bums, to be satisfied
of his qualifications for the task, and that he has succeeded in putting
them, after an upright and conscientious manner, to the proper use. It
oertainly appears odd, that a high Tory functionary should stand out the
champion o£ the Bard who sung,
" A man*i a man for a' that :**
and who, because of his democratic tendencies, not only missed of public
patronage, but moreover had long to sustain every humiliation and indirect
persecution the local satellites of intolerance could fling upon him* But the
ispse of time, and the spread of intelligence, have done much to remove
prejudices and soften asperities ; to say nothing of that independence of
mind which always adheres to true genius, and which the circumstances
in the poet's history naturally roused and excited in a kindred spirit. Mr.
(*** %
111 )
Lockhari, it w31 farther be observed, besides ha?in^ tetnpiled his work fM*
der circumstances of a general nature much more favourable to accimta
delineation, likewise set about the task in a more philosophical nwoMf
than the preceding biographers. He judged for himself ; he took neither
facts nor opinions at second-hand ; but inquired, studied, comparefl» and
where doubtful, extricated the facts in the most judicious and careful maa
ner. It may be said, that titat portion of the poet's mantle which invealad
his sturdiness oT temper, has fallen upon the biographer, who» as the fort
did, always thinks and speaks for himself.
lliese being our sentiments of Mr. Lockhart's Life of Bums, we hava
preferred it as by far the most suitable biographical accompaniment of the
present edition of his works. It has been our study to insert, in this edi-
tion, every thing hitherto published, and fit to be jiublished, ot' which
Bums was the author. The reader will fmd here all that is contained
in Dr. Currie's edition of 1800, with the pieces brought to light by all thr
respectable authors who have since written or published of Bums. — ^Thp
following general heads will show the nature and extent of tlie preoenf
work.
1. The Life by Lockliort.
5. The Poems, as published in the Kilmarnock and first Edinburgh editioa*
with the poet's own prefaces to these editions, ond also as published
in Dr. Currie's edition of 1800; having superadded the pieces aince
brought forward by Walker, Ir\'ing, M orison, l^iul, and Cromek.
8. Essay (by Dr. Curric), on Scottish Poetry, including the Poetfy oC
Bums.
4. Select Scottish Songs iiol Bums's, upwards of 200 in number, and manjr
€i& them having his Annotations, Historical and Critical, prefixed.
6. Buras*s Scn^St collected from Johnson's Musical Museum, the laiger
work ^ Thomson, and from the publications of Cromek, CunninghaiQ^
and Chalmers, nearly 200 in number.
6. The Correspondence, including all the Letters published by Dr. Curric^
besides a number subsequently recovered, published by Cromek and
othera.
The whole forming the best picture of the man and the poet, and the onljr
complete edition of his writings, in ont work, hitherto offered to the public.
Besides a portrait of the poet, executed by an able artist, long familiar with
the original picture by Nasmyth, there is also here presented, (on entire
novelty), a &c*simile of the poet's handwriting. It was at one time mat-
ter of surprise that the Ploughman should have been a man of geniua and
n poet. If any such curious persons still exist, they will of course be lOse* :
wiae surprised to find that he was so good a penman.
miw TonK, Sept. 1I| 1838.
CONTENTS.
Ptig^
nrflet from Dumltief— The AfuM wakeful an ever, while the Poet maintalM A
vaiied and excenaiTe litcraiy correapondenee with all and aundnr— Remarka udoii
iSbm cotifapondcDce Sketch of hb penoo and habits at this period bjr a brother
poet, who ahewt came a|{ainst aucceaa in fanning— The untoward conjunction of
Owiger to Fanner— The notice of the aquirearch^, and the calla of admiring
iriailon, lead too uniformly to the ultra conririal life— Leaves Klliesland (ITtfl)
to be czdacman In the town of Dumfries, ..,. » -»■■ ■ ■■» lxsxii-»4(f
GSAP* VIII. — Is more beset in town than country— His earljr biompherf, (Dr.
Carrie not excepted), hare coloured too darkly under that head-^u is not correct
to sneak of the Poet as having sunk into a toper, or a solitanr drinker, or of his
mus as other than ocraxional, or of their having intcrferca with the punctual
dkcharge of hit official duties — He it shown to have been the affectionate and be-
loved hukband, althouf^h pwMing foSlics imputed ; and the constant and most as-
iiduous instructor of his children — ImpubieM of the French llevo1ution.~Symp.
loms of fntemizinfc— The attention ot hi» official superiors is called to them—
Pnctically no blow i« inflicte<I, only the bod name — Interesting details of thbpe-
riod.M.^iTes his whole soul to song ioaking~.Preference in that for his nauve
dialect, with the other attendant f&cu, as to that portion of his immonal lays, ..^ zd— cix
CvAF. IX. — The Poet*s mortol period approaches....His peculiar temperament—
Symptoms of premature old age — These not diminiiJied oy narrow drcumstanoes
mmJC&Bgnvk from neglect, and death of a Daughter — The Poet misses public pa-
tronage : and even the fur fruits of hist own geniuii — the appropriation of which
is debated for the casuista who gelded to him merely the iliell — His mognani-
inity when death is at hand ; hi:* interTicw», convenmiions, and addresses as a
dying man^-Dies, 21st July l/lfri — Public funeral, st which many attend, and
amongst the rest the future Premier cf England, wlio had steadily refused to ae.
iDMnruidge the Poet, living — Hi* family muniliccnily provided for by the publie
-^Analysis of character — His integrity, rrligiouH Ktate, and genius— Strictures
upon him and bis writings by ikott, Campbell, Uyron. and ouuers, — .^.^.-..i... ex— csxiiv
Vcnet on the death of Dums, by Mr. Roscoe of I jvcrpool, m cxxzt
Character of Bums and his M'ritingft, by Mrs. Iliddcll of Glcnriddell,
00mm0m^mm0^^*
Co the First Edition of Dums^t Poems, prictcd in Kilmarnock, „■■.,.*, dxiift
to the Caledonian Hunt, prefixed to the E^^inburgh Editiott, .^.i, .„, Jz?
CONXSNTS OF THE POEMS,
th BflTd EOd* to (hfl West In
Ihc flH of Fvrn
thrHlshluKll.-
kdniMlnlTOl
Tha Aiild Cimc^ NH.YinC.SakitUioa to
M.« Muaie.
Voweli, ■ rt\e, - -
wtam, ■iMut, — — —
Emi on ScoNU PmIit |Di. Cunbl, _
^
CONTENTS OF THE SELECT SCOTTISH SONGS.
AmATiW aud hit Cutty Gun, ...,■»*»«.«.». ^.^ > I-IR
ABHIC JjliWrltf J- --n. -r-i jj rxrjj. 17>>
Al I wrat nut In a May Moininf*. ^.«.^>,..^,,^.^, 1 ST
S%OD1ll ^ ' y> *-**■■----■----- rrrrjj r>r Jiru-ir <^ ra j r r jijijr n 1 ■' J
^^ ^wSUKllXC 9Xlllil\| "— ■** --■■■-■ » i tm a-ft-r r^rw rr.rij.rj-.rj 11'
Am Whiss Awa, .,,^,.^
'^•^•^'^^^^^•^m*^0im0>^ii0^0>0>im0'^m^^i^w I
.*^ Ibl
Berif of Srrect Rosn, ,
the GRukio.~'.«^~..~
Beuv Bell anil Mnry (rr.-.v, ^
BMe'yc Vcr cJfiut:}, «..!-..-,
Blink oVr tlic IJurn Sivit Ik- 1*-. -,«-,
Blue IJonni't^ ovrr Ih'j! U.>r.'ii-,^.,„
Bamiic Knrlnra Allan, ^
Mary Hay,^
i#« ■«^«1^^« ^«
'# «« ## 'v^v « -
'^0^^0*r ^>»^^0'0'^^m9«0 mm^^
Cgmc ye o'er frr.s Fr.i«cc,
Carle :in* the Kinp ovm.'.-.
CauJil Knil in Alrnlroii.^.
Car the Kwes ti> ilic K .oiv
Charhe i< my Darhnj;, ~«.
Cloiit the CiuMroUi^^..^
Cockpt'n,
<»^»^»^^^^#^^»*y^^^^^^^* J
Come under my I'liiiiu*
Comin' thro* the live
Corn Ilijjs are Hnmii
Crail Toivii (Ir.im L'or:ii:i
Oomlci's Lilt, M^^.
1);-.
*^^^^*^^*^>^'» •• ««»
11- I
i:o
IM
IT'i
i'-'
Hi
i;.r
17-:
i;.i
io7
is:
1.-7
1.'.!
](!.-
MJ
1. ■,;■•.
IJC
1.M
1'
Jockey uid to JcnDy,«MM<.M«M«.
John ilay'K Uonnic Laacie. ...«.
•^m0im^i0^W*^'*i»*
Jdhn o* U:t(l(!nyon,
Johnny Cope,
Johnny Fca,
Johnny's Ciray Brocks, ^
Jujnpin John,
P0 0'm *» »^mm mmm^mm'mmsm^i^'^i^i^'^
115
« 144
. 145
.M lun
^ 106
1^
Kaip of Aberdeen,
K.ithniu' O^le,
Rei'p the Country
l\ul\ in (jrore, ,.^
Uoimiu Lurjii', ^«.<,.
ui.uninvv'.i on nn«l nwi Willie, — .»«■■.. ...
IIiliuT:;:iku! (The Baltle).
KilKcrankio O (the Utaus), ..^^..^
]vijii llobiu lutiH uie.
0^<^'0-0^0'^^m^m^^0^^mm^>m0im0^^^i^i0i^immmm^^tm
- 107
~ Ih."?
^ 13H
i.v;
18,5
117
1&>
175
L."yV/ T.Tary Ann,
L.'.ss f;in yc Loo me ti'll nic now,
Lr^-.if lie near me, i.».,<w .».»«»...«»
Lcv.-i< Gordon.
Little w.it yc \vhn'« comin*.
LochulxT no more, ■^■^^^■.
Lix:hna;:ar,
^»rf>^^>*^>»^
Lo;',aii ilraes. (double fct),~
Lo;;ii; o' niK'han,^.^^^^
Lend Ronald, my Son, ^.....^
LoMT down in the Uruumj
im ^m^m^m ^m ^^^> ^^»^ ^•i»»-o#i»o>*>»^i*^»wMij»o^
^*»^^^»*»»i^*i#>» »*«#
ninna think Konnh- l.?.-<i\c,.^^^,.^^„^^^..^.„^ 1.'"
IXmald roii]i.ir, ^^..^..^^.^...^ ,^^.^^.....^,^^ li'.c.
Sown the Bum Davic^.^^^^^^,^.^,,,...,.^,...^ 1 : ■
Dumhartmi'i Drums,.^. .^^^ — ,^.^„., ,.-»^ 1J7
^^USiy 3mivTj 0^<^>0^*mi0 0^mm*m0^^<mi^^0mti0mm^^^mm0»0^00m^* ^^^^^m^^ l«JO
'f.tejil'.TKijn's Rant,
■^l.i;.-.':e Lander,
0^i^m^*^>^^m0>m'^i^>0>^*'^
7 Mary j-iv)t, the Flower o' Y.irrmv, ■....^^,,..^..^
Ettrick Banks,
^»»» * »i^^#<# ^# ^i0^*'^0^0^^^>m>0m ^i#^» ^0>^im^m<^0 •
*>»^>»^p ^ I •>
^«»^^^i^BX^Pi^»**» o* ^w I
Wr Annie of Loohroyan,
Fairly Shot of Her,
FalM! Love and \u'.c yc Played Me This ^^,
JFivewetl to A ynh Ire, .,.-«.—
Fare ye wee! my A'.ild \\ iio, -
For Lark o' Iio] \ Mi..'s Icf: ir.f, -
For the Sake o* JjomclxKly, «,^...^^..
Fye gar rub her o'er wi" sjuaw
C?ala V.'cter,-.^^*.
Get up and liar thr; Pm^r U, ^
Oo to Bcrwirk Joliiui*,
tiudo Vill Coiius a:i'I (Jude Viil Uon,
.Mi-riy h;ic' 1 been Teething a Heckle, .,^..>.^..^
M..!. Mil!. (),
m^mimimm^'^mmm
VyAt.It Man,
i I V J K-ari', if tijou Die, ^^
My Jo J.;!.c:,
>'y Lf've s-hi's hut a Lassie yet, — ,
My Lo\e'* in (icrmanie.
9>*im^'0tfm0>mm^^im
I » i < I I I ■ I < r I rr r r<ir<-r Cf r^ ra Jn i#<»rM r rtfn ra ■'■wxi^ia
MiMMAAtflPX
I ^>i^»0<0
^^^010^109 <
Hame Ti'n-CT cam* Wr, ^,.-.
Haud an-a fr»e nji* T»'^t,iM,
Hap and row t'.i- i'lf. tic o'r,-.
Here's ? Health to ll>e.:i that's ana
Hey oi* (l«r.ni.';h,-.^-.^.-.<<
Illghlrnd LiiUiK-, , ^..^M^,
Hooly nnd Knirtii',*.
Uugltic (;ir.!ium,^«.
I had a llnmc ard I hrd nao malr, —
I'm o'rr Vi:U!>i: tn ^^1rr,• Vet, ..■,^,^.^
ni nevrr Ic-avp Vr, ..^Z,.-^
1 JooCd nac a LaiUlic }."it anc, .
Jfeniiy Mans the Wrawr, ^^.^.^.^
My M.thpr'.* aw (ilowrin o'er me,
My Native CaU.dnnia, ^ — ...»>.
My onlv Joe and Dearie (), .^^^
m0 m»9» 9m^t mt^^^m ^trnt^m^m^^^immmmm^mm^
My Wne's a Wanton Wee Thing
My Wife has tatu the Gee, «~««*^
•■M^-M^tflMMMM^^MM^H*
Neil Gow's Farewell to Whisky O,
O an' re were Peail Gudcman,*
(> (viii ye l:u)i)v:r I^a Vouhj; Man,«..~«
Uch lu'V Jiilinnr Lad.
(> di ,ii- 'M::niy uhnt kh:Jt I do,
(» iiiL'iTv V. ?v t!:c Mai I l)J.
^^^00^0^ ^^^mi^^i0>m^^^m*
>^0 0^0^010
i0»0mm* mm
I) iMi o.hrh) (ihe AVidow of GlcrrfX);, «.«m
Old Kin;T C"Oi;l.-.^«.-.
(hir (luidrr.mi t-ain' Ilame at L'cn,
O'lt I li'.' Muir aman J the 1 leather,
(J'cr IJ;>fji.r wi* uiy I^i\C,
0 ^0 ^^0^'^i^0>0imm
U Waiv, W;'.ly up you Uauk,^
i I^iklwarth on the Grccn,.,.^.*^^..^.
Po\c;:y psrti Gudc Company,.
IMMW lift
Iff*
A ■ '
,^ IGJ
l.V)
If TcOl bo mv Dawtie a:ul kit on my Platd, ^.^^.^ ](:j
RoO'in Caitlp,«»
Uo) » Wifc,^^
K:»e "^lerry an A^e hnc been, *
^andy o'er the Ix>a, »^.«^
iSaw )u Jiihnny Comm', m.^
165
164
119
ICO
18C
184
15!)
155
149
16i
lt5
121
112
1*4
ICA
12S
1 65
IIH
r.'5
I6S
174
IVi
107
;.j5
16(;
IGG
170
167
139
h;i
ia>
1&5
119
IfH
161
150
165
lis
185
105
170
116
16.5
105
«■ T*** *^ •■'• t/rtVtIV BilU Mfc Mil llljr • t«Hl, »w»«»— ll>. OilW )V W<llillliy I IIUIIII , «.>..^..»,oi.i..«i — .WiMM^tPJ* JUlT
^ woOaro of Old Qvi'f*f*t»<rtrf<ttr*r*r*'vi»i***t**twim HO Saw )c wy KBthCTj »rrf »f<»w»»«w»^i »«<»«» «i>wi la^nu^ ni
C0NTBNT8.
tftm roMf an»\ tct me in,.
yiwrhtr up anU fMud her gAun,
Sttcphon MM Lytluit **'»—m
.^ lr>4
II.'.
»« 170
.^ 1.»
.^ 170
TA* your A«iU Cloak about yo«,«
Tmm o* the iMIodi.i. ^■>#.
Tsrry WtfOtJ».i w«»
Tha AuM Man'* Marc's dead, i»
Tbe AuM Wife ayont the Fire. ««»«»
The Rattle tf Sherra-mnir, .
The Banks <f the Tweed. ««
The Bed« o* Sweet Ruses, •»
THe Birkii of Inrermay,
The Blythrsotne Bcidal. «
The Bbthrie o*t,«
The Bnatie mwi.
k4V«Mei4MMkaWi»««i«i*«a«^ *
The Bub of DumbUneM
The bonnie brucket Lassie, «,
MW««»«M«aa»«aw
The bonnie Lai« o' Brankmrnc, .,...
The bnnnic L«u that made the Bed Ui me..
The Rrses uT Oalleodcan, .■■^.., »..-,..,
The brisk yotme L«d,
TKe Bfumc o' tne Covdenknowes, .»«
Tlie Bush ab >oa Traqusir, .
The CampbdU are eomin*, «»..•.
l*he Ctfl? h? cam' o'er the Craft, «.
The ('iiaUicrN bnnnie L«f«ie»
MaM#*«>Aei«k«kM*««i#«k«wi#*ew
The Ewie wi' tlie Crookit Horn.-. i, .......
Ttie Ftotrcn of Uic Forest, .,».->—».-«—
Tiie KloYcis (if EtimlHireh,.. ». »>.—.■ i*^.—
The F.way,
mm^mimm^mmm^mm^^im^m^m*
The (•abrrlnnsie Man,
The happy Marriage. .^—^
TIm Hicklaiht guvcn, ...»
The JiiUy HnuC'ti^* «>'»«»««»^
'I'he l.ammie.
The Laodart Lainl,
Thft Laa of Peatitys Mill, .»..# ,.«,.».■*,., ^,».,
I'he l*aas u Liviston.*. n r« » ■»>> >■»«»».»»■»»» ■»»»
The Last 1 im;» I cam' o'er the Muir^
TW vH*H^ttn*f**fT*****'***'<'f^''*T*it*r*f*r'<*»*"^t
I7fi
113
lf»
in
l'J9
131
179
IW
tio
1U
11(1
166
137
ITTJ
175
179
ll(i
161
IM)
ll.'S
117
Ml
!.'>!
»H7
142
no
112
171
i.a
I«'7
las
KKJ
The Mfo and A|ie ti MtH.^.-M^Mi.
The Maid that tends tlie Uoats, .
The Maltinan. •»»»»■*»«■. i* ■>»■»■
•*M«*MMMMM
>*PM
It
^6
The prierry Men O,
The Miller o* Dee. *^^^^^m^
•m
The Min«tr«!l (nnnoduliead), ..
The muekin* o' Geordic^ Byre*
The Okl Man's SfWff.'
The PocU, what Foob thtfre to Daave us.
The ruesie, ,
The flock and the wee pickle Tow,*^
The S nitork »' Selkirk. .,».»>»i..— «,
The Tailor fell thro' the Bed.
The Tunilmtpike-..^
IIS
17T
IM
17J
151
ISi
IM
Hi
111
lit
ISt
IM
The weary Pund o' Tow, ^^
The wee, wee (reiinan l.airdie,
The IV ee Thim|iw»— »»»»»■ m »««ii
The Wee WiOkle,
..^ im
I he White Cockade,
The Widow, .»,...,».,.
'i'he Veliow.hAir'd Udilic.
i he Young Laird and E<hnbuT|[h Katiei
There's imc Luck about tlie Huuser
This U no Mine Aiu House,
Tibbie Fiiwier, .i*..>.<>^...M...
Tibbie Duubjr..,.. «..„.,.,.
To D.in:i:on Me,.
Ta the Kyc wi' Me, (3 sei»).
Tndlln I lame, ...., ».. ,.^,
Tnuient-Miiir, -
TiilloehKorum. .
Twas within a Milv o' Kdniburgh l^wn, ,
Twecil»idc {i sets),*. ,
187
IM
171
mi
IM
int
lis
I4t
17«
Ht
13f
17<
19f
Itl
IH
174
IM
Up and Warn a' Willie, ...^
L |> in the Muruiu' early,...*.
»»■■■ iSl
— ISf
Wandering Willie, ..i^,.,.
Waukui* u' tlie Kjiild* ■.wi*...^.^...
We're a' Nid Nixldin..
I mmmmm»<^i0m0>^^immmm*mf
■M IM
... IM
-. 167
Were iiae my Vleart Liqlit 1 wad Die, , IM
Willie was a Wttiiinn Wan, *»-" — "■■■« IM
WW4 «iU turned and a', .... ■■<»«»«■< <<m'hi^ lit
»* *^'
CONTENTS OF BURNS'S SONG&
I, a neart>warm fcmd AiCcu, .........
M CBBd Kiss and then we Sever,
A^n rcjoictng Nature sees, ......^.i .......
A Highland Ljd niv I^vc was bom.«..~
Amang the Trers w:iorL> humming Uocs,
A Kan's a Man fur a' that,....—.,..
Aniia.^
^ IHS
^ IM
^ 1>>8
189
189
189
1!I0
VM
Amle,
A iM rad Ro^e...'
A Ron Bud bv my early Walk,...
A ScMthtwid jTcnnie,
AuU Lang S> nc,...— iw ... ■ ..■■ «... .. «..
AvM Rob Mi^rris, »■ n....r>.i.»i.i...M...p.».
»...» ^..lai..*!..*..
mi
i<)i
......... I'Ji
and her Spinnlnf .Wheel,
BehoM the hour the Hoat arrives.
Beware of Bonnie Ann,
Beyond thee. I>earle,
«WMI»«IM#WMke
Biythc hae I been on yon Hill,...*..
Blythe wis She, .. ...■■ ...mm ■ ■■ m.. ■»■
Bell...
...... 1!«.^
Jean, ...
Leriey,
Wee Ihine. ........
tf OaiiDockuum,*.
V.fi
191
VH
rahrtnnli flhrir OroTet & flweet Myrtir). IP.')
Caa'at lb«Ni leave roe thus, Katy. ..,,, .. ..■■ .^^ \uS
Rc|ily, m. ,...,.- 196
^ir Qte Kwes,....«i.w.w.i.i»«..M.......i.......i......«.M..i.i...>... i *.•'
CIiIMi *ww>w*»w»'W*»w.»' »*»<»«» *»w>^»rw>^^fr»»w» »»<»*» IvO
Pag($,
i iiiori^i .... w. ........ .. .■...■.. .p .......... ..I... ....i.w^.w.1.. a«p7
Clar inn ti, ........ .».....».».<o».».».. ». ....«■.. ..........^mi. 1«fi
Come Irt inc tnKc Thcc to iny Uicast, ............. 1«I7
ConlciJUnl wi' Little,
(.'oimtry f.«n!(«ic,
0im^m^^>^>mtmmm'*»^
Craigicuuru>wo(xl,~^
197
19a
193
Dainty Darir,-..
Dcliiiieil ^ivain.
Ilnrs li.iii^iity Uiiil,..^.
...«....«.«.
DoAii llic lliiru Daxli*, ~.
Duncan Gra'y , .......... ....*..
Evan Banks,
198
1911
199
199
1S0
199
^» # ^m0^m m0'0imm0>^m0mi0^ o^i*
Fr.lr EHra.-
KAirc5t Mai i *>u Drven Daiiks...^
fate i;avi* the Wcmi, ........»....<
I-'or the Sake o* SomebtKly, ^
Koiloru my Love,
From tiicc Eliza...
»«#«»i««iMPi#WM
p^p»»*ei»»
Gala. Wafer,.
Gloomy Dccrinlier, .-
Orecii prow the llashc* 0,..~.
Uudewifu count the Lawin',.
TOO
'.*00
9W}
ftil
301
SOI
3ui
StW
n-s
904
tu TbciQ th«i'f awa, ^MMw.iwnw ^
na<l la Cn\e nii some Wild distant Shore,
MAii(lv)nit* Ncii, .................xi . »»».....«....
Hrr flowing Loi-k«,
llerv'# a health to Anc 1 Inc dear, ..
CONTENTS.
Page,
^^••Botttoiad Ml Honit Friend, «.«...«.....,. 9tH
tfl^hllM mMijp ■«■! ».i.«..i.i»p<»M. .■■««. .«..■>. 305
Mwr Ciml «w th» Pwau, ,„. fD4
mm ]Mi§ ami inuj fa Um Night, . 304
I «■ a Sob of ltei,...i. ■
Jmie flOBM try me,^..— .,...■.■.. ..i
I iwni'd I toy wImio Fkmon were sprtnglfiff »
n are ei* la by yon Town,,
r«o*erV
ftiO*er VouBf to Marry wt, «^
It k BOB Jaaa thy boaaie Feoe, ...*..
'« U'en the Partii^ Khe,
- ndetinnmyjo,
Badeyeora, «.«»
805
306
305
3(15
^ 306
«. 306
^307
Mv 306
Lait May a brew Wooer oem* down the Lang Glen, 308
Laale wi* the Lint-white r.oeki, 308
»thy lAtot In nine Lait, ........................ wiw S08
Ml a Wooaan e'er cootptoin, Sog
SiBrao, 309
, long the Night, .., .,.„.. 3«i9
Oregory, ——.wjiw ».■..»».«».«■...■
«. .« «■ .11 .. xuv
310
llMPhcnon** Fan
Maria'^ DweUing,
Farewell,
onder Pomp of eoitly Fashion. .
yonder roi
MoTtiao»««
M«ii^theMiU.
My Bonnie Mary. «.
f Heart** hi the Highlands..
Mf UMly'e Gown thMe^s Gain upoa't, .
My Nannic^s awa, ^
My Nannie O.
8*
f Fogy's Faee my P^ggf* Form.
y Spouie Neney.
My Wiftli a wtaMome Wee Thing,
MliliU on dw Roaring Oceaa,
Naibody,
310
310
Sll
311
311
313
313
31t
212
313
SIS
313
314
311
Nancy, MMM
Nan Banlu and Brae* are dad in Green, «.«
Now Spring has dad the Grove in Grem.^^
Now weetlm Wind* and stoughtering Guns,
O* a* the alrti the Wind can bUiw.
O ay my Wife she danr me,
O bonaie is yon Rosy Briery
81br Ane and Twmtie Tam.
gin my Lore were yon RmI Rose. «.^
O leave Novdics ye Maudilin Uellcs, ^
O let me in this ae Night,
O Lore will vmture in,
O May, thy Mom.«.«.
On a Bank of Flowers, .
On Ccssoock Bank, >.^. «,..>.-.
On the Seas and far away,.
Opra the Door to me O..
O Phllly happy be that day...... -.,..».
O flay sweet warbling Woodlark, «..*.
O wat ye WhiTs In yon Town, ^.....^
O were I on Pamaasus Hill, ....^
O wert Thou fai the CaaM Blast,
O wha is She that Loes me,^
Out over tho Forth,.»*. ..*»*»■«.»».•» »■.«■» *».»w»^
fSSL
AHsoHm
• ■■•>■•• the Fair.
FnwcTs Celestial whoee protection,
Fitfftith Cauld.
An«#i«p##>«Mlr«»>«wis
514
314
214
215
SI.*)
'.'16
21C
316
217
217
217
218
21K
219
21.H
31!)
219
230
230
220
321
316
316
316
321
W3
233
332
B«itin'Roarin* Willie,
Raring Winds aimttd her WowiH*'
•MMMMMMaMWM
Saw ye onght oT Captain GroM^ —.•
im,^
fi^^'^^^m^mmmmmimm'mfmmi^mmammm
She's Fair and Shc^s Fauaeb .
She says she Loes roe best of aT,
Sie a Wife as Willie had,..
33S
339
nyo.li
Steer her up and hand her gaun
ts—^u^ «_•_ A.m. w-mm. ^^^ n_x2.k^.
mm*m^m*m0m*
^m^^m^m^m^m^tfmmm
SweoC Cs'e the Sva on CiaictabHm.wood,
Tarn Glen, ■■■..mm.
335
234
..^ 334
M^S34
The AukI Han,
The Banks o^ Castle Gordon,.
o^Cree.
^335
o Pevon,»».«».w»
& Doon,
o^Nith,
The BanTs Soiig,
»e*»<*<w*
^ tfS
....... 336
■ ...... xx^
33.S
336
The Battle o' Sherra-Muir,
The Big-bellied Bottle,. ,. .
The Birks o' Aberfeldie,*,.
The Blue-eyed Lassie,
The bonnie Wee Thing,
326
237
«..»«» 337
.... tm TTo
The Braes & Ballochroyle,
The Carle & Xdlybum-Braes, .
The Chevalier's Lament, ^^
The Day Returns, ,.,.«,.>—
The Death Song, ^
33<
.»«...■ 338
The Ddl's awa wi* the Exdseman, .
The Election,*.
The Gallant Waaver,..^.
The Gardener, ^»^
The Gkwmy Night U gatherin' fast, -m^^^
The Heather was bloomin',
The Highland Lassie 0,«m
The Lad that'* far awa,
^ 839
i*. 329
^ 3.10
^ 3W)
.. 330
., 331
.. 331
- 333
.. 233
1 llv ajwsi «flMa%a %m^ nv*«% mmmmmm0>^^>f<^>0'^m*m*
The Lass o* Ballochmyle.
The Lass that made the Bed tu me,....
The Lasy Mist,
The Lea-Rig, .
The Ixivdy l.ass o' Inverness,
The Ix)ver*s Salutation, ..*....
TheRieeso'Bartev.
The Soldier's Return, ..^.
The stown G lance o' Kindncas............
The Toast, ^
..»» 333
i..>.>i .1 ...» 335
I ..*........>. xa«.
235
^ 235
3.35
The Tocher for Me,
The Woodlark,
— 337
..^ 336
338
2.37
3.37
The Voiinf; Highland Rover,
Therein never be I*race till Jamie oumes hune,«. 336
There's a Youth in this City. -. .„ 337
There's News Lasses. „.,.,...,.», , ^ 337
There was once a Day, 338
ThU is no mine ain Lassie, 31X
Thou has left ine ever Jamie, ^.» ......«..,.».» ....... S39
Tibbie 1 hae seen the Day, ..«.«.«.«....«.........«....«. 340
To Mary in Heaven. ,.,.....■..■■■. .............. 239
True-hearted was He, ■ ,mmm ...»<...J -340
Wae Is my Heart and the Tearsin my Ka^.
Wandering Willie,.
^ 310
~. 340
What can a Young Lauie do wt' an Auld Man, .. 340
Wha Is that at my Bower Door, ...,, »., 311
When Guildford Good, « ^» 341
Where are the Joys I hae met in the Momhtg, ^ 343
Whistle and I'll come to ye my Lad, 3f 3
Willie brew'd a Peek n^ Maut, — ...,. ..«, 342
Will Ye go to the Indict my Mary..,., 943
Wilt thou be my Deane, -..«..«..,.......>.,... , 313
fmiim«0*mtir00mrt»*»»»*rM*»*f*»i*tit0 ••«
»mm^mm0^^^*^m^m^im
Yon Wild Moeiy Mountains,...*
Young Jockey was the biythest Lad,
34J
34.y
3U
CONTENTS OF THE CORRESPONDENCE.
1783. 1781.
L»v« Ullaib at fO. tai food Ei«li«h, but untTail.
Tollr. r ' • - . -
or Um Pott and hkOpi.
Xxtractiltan tht !ffftap-frOTli^
tfMiMMIP«»«»itfV«»««*pl«»
549
S50-2
1786.
ToHr Join Richmoml, Cdlnbinith— lint inib-
T« Mr. Hocwhinnto. Ayr— «une topic,
To Mc laiMt SxnitA. Mauehline— loiito for Ja-
MW4.MMIM
U3
To Mr. DavM Brioe — mne — about to become
moct im ^fiW— Che bMt foolUh action he U to
To Mr. AlUbOi, Ayr— Authonhip^Kxcito— a fU<
To Mrt Dunlop— OfBt Letter— her order dtr Cx*-
^-4— hit oariy dMotkm u her aoeettor. Sir W.
waiiaee.M ■■«■ ■» ■»—■■——>■ •, ,, r «■ >.«■«»»»»■»».»■. 7df
To Mn. Stewart of Staii— introductory— hurry—
totog abroad ~«emUSongt. S55
FraoA I>c Blacklock tn the Rev. Mr. G. Laurie—
with Jttrt eitiinate of the Puet'R merits— which
En an cod to the West India icheme, and bring*
■ to Bdinbunh, ■■..m , .>.»««...«.■—.> 25.>
FnNB^Sir John Whitefoord— ouroplimeoUry.^...^ S36
Ftam the Rer. Mr. G. Laurie iireMing intcnrlew
««th Dr. DIacklock— cood advice, .^ 256
To Gavin Hamilton, Mauehline— /rom Kdinburgh
— <he Poet eminaat as Thomas a Kem|iiB or
John Buarao-^AfOlirsafflii Edinburgh public, 256
To Dr. Macfciniie, MaucwM— with the Lines on
La«dDafr««.
257
1787.
To Mr. Joha BaQaatloe, Ayr— otfuiienees at
Biini
abofghy.—
r. winiam
neip«*OMew«*weM
To Mr. Wllflam Chafanen. Ayr— the same, and
taBOumosly apologetieai, 257
To Mr. Joha Ballanttoe— Fnrming projects and
fkolher incidents at Edinburgh, «.>..,«,...-.,.,■„., 25ft
To the Earl of Efltaloo— a thankful Letter, 258
To Mm Dnoloi^ treats of Dr. Moore and his
J*— critieal remarks c
maelf at the height of popular Csvour,., 259
rrtttnfs— critieal remarks on his own— and
woo nimaelf at the height of popular Civour,..
To Dr. Mooffo— IntrodueCory — the Poet's views of
htmselff
«»A* .pO«/
Tmm Dr. Moore— thbiks the Poet no/ of the Ir-
rUabUtMfmu* admires his love of Country aiid
fndencndent spirit, not le« than his Poetical
Beauties emA MIm WlUbkms Sonnet on tho
Mountain Daisy. ■.«.».■.»» ».«.!.«»»>» ...m.!. .»■.«..■ «.* 3uu
iViDr. Mooco-gMcnl character of Miss Williaim*
To Mr. John DaUai^ne— printn^ at Edinburgh,
Mrt gettjtjt his n>l» done,..., 261
From Pr. MoorO'-trHh his View of Society— and ^
To the Sari of Otaneaira— with Line* for his Pic-
Tb the Cari of Burhsn— as to Pilgrimages In Cale-
Proecedingv as to the Tombstone of Femnsnn, 2»4
To Mr. James Candlith, Glasgow— the i\>ct dlaas
to Revealed Rclieinn, leaving Splnosn— but still
the Old Man with his deeds, .,..» IN
To the same— Arst notice of Joha^oo's Musical
To Mrs. Dunlop. fhrni Eilinburgh— the Hard— his'
situation and views, „».,..«.., - ffi
Tu the same, «.-..., «. ..,, ;
To Dr. Mniwe— leavmg Edinburgh for his first
PiUrrimace,
mmm^mmim
To Mrs. Dunlop— Mre under Iter literary criti*
CHIfHsw^^i mmmmtmmmmm
0mmm^0mmm
To the Rev. Dr. Hugh Iflair^'^ave taking..
From Dr. Blair— who notices his own claims fiic
flnt intrmlucing Oisian's Poems to the wiwM—
gircK the Poet, at parting, accrtiicate of ch»>
ractrr, with much good adri.^e, both vocdly aad
pneticit.
pj'^^^piOXipo^^i***^*^****^**!** m^mm^^m
To Mr. Willism Crccrh— wt:h the Klegy durii^
the first Pili^rimafe, .>«>^.„ , ■>., SH
From Dr. Moore— uparing iiie HercaTer of the
Provtnci.il Dialect rrcoinmendcd— more valiia*
ble hints al<o giveti, ^.m^*,^^^^,^^ .. ».,^. .. „.,.» Ml
Tn Mr. William Nlcoll— the Poe:'s Itinerary la
bimU Spota.^..^^.....^...........,.,^..^.,.,......^ fldT
Frtim Mr. John llutchei>on, Jamaica — Poems
excellent— but belter in ihr Englith «ty1e— Scat*
li<h now hecominc nb«ulrto— disutiidcs from the
Wot Indicit--" there iit no enctMiragemetit for a
man of lenminc and grniiH tliere.* .,..»«. Mi
To Mr. W. XicolT— on arri\ing at home— mniaH-
xcs over the iiccnes and Coinpsninns of his re>
cent elrvafino-^loomily a* to the future,..*..,- SM
To (lavin Hamilton— occurrences of the seoiod
PilfH'imaee. .» ..->...»«... n.,., SM
To Mr \^ all(cr. Blairin-Athole— the s^me— Che
Duke's family, ^ ,.. ,. ,„^ fn
To Mr. (jilbcrt Ilunv—fiirthrr adventures, «— 279
From Mr.RAmjay of n.*htertyre— with laeenptlona
—Tale of Owen Camcrun— hinu for a Poctkal
Composition on the grand acale and other taste-
ful and interctfing rojttrr... ., »..»..,— 271 -t
From Mr. Watkrr, .Mholc-Hou^c— particubn nf
the Poet's visit there— fctaalc euntrivaneos to
prolong his »'iiy,„» .■,...... STV
From ^^r A. M*. an admiring Frtcud letumcd
from Abroad— with tnbufary Verses
From Mr. Ramviy to the Re«. William Voung—
intniduetiiry of the Poet,
171
From the snme to Dr. Ularklock— .rith thanlts for
the PoK's acnuainrance and Siings— i\nce1ote», 271
From Mr. Munliich-^ kind Lcrter fiom aa old
Tutor, njoicing in the fhiits of the genius he
had helped to cultivate, «»..- .^.-,.^- .. „ 273
From Mr R. , fn>m Uovdon.Caitle — inadvnis
of the Pocl'i vi.;i'. there,
275
From the Ro'. John bklnncir— prefer* the Natural
to the Classical Poet— hit own Poesy— eonui-
butc( to the 5«onR.making entcrnrise, ■ , , 27ft
From Mtk Rom oiT Kilraivach— UaeUe airs— the
Poet's NorUicm Toiir,-
— *37
"ittMi
To Mr. Duln-ropIeofflraBgcftcld— RhynieS'
Fragment— Letters to Hi« Chalmers ---r ,
To nitss M ao Es»ay on the oompltiaentary
style, p.— ..<».. »» ■■■» ...... .»■.«»«■ .1. «i.ni mmmmtimmmmmtmmm^m 9#l
1'oMr. Uobert Ainslic^-fticuJahi
iip,«»-.
To Mr. John Ballantine— wi;h Soof,
aad Bcacs g* Ooouk . oon,.
MMMW*
Ve Banks
kli CONTENTS.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
Ts Dr. Woorr, tmm Ui* I>Dct— SkHdi of h
T^'li
(lllbm Bnnu, * niniii>( Cenuocntuy
Fmrnstr
M.^^. B u .fc. ee^ m^ Tuk
;—>■-•••■-"»—*»";
rromM
(iiiljfil Hum., living h-uay of uiifin
Tin rMniiau>-t!uak, iftnha ninci
lETTERS, V785.
To Vn. Dwilofii fVom Ediot
•tCDf--«|iclJ]tv IniiniulMm u (a
Dniilop — DndcB't ViMil—
^^iMipi^nlcd hi the jfcntid
irtEStaSrflfRlSl. _ ,„
tnjKlllut ml hvmmijr of linrnijip. *
To Ht. Rateit AlDllk-4 JiiirLMIrr
Tolln.Owiliii>— InrnulKiarniiiitllkini,. MT
Totht)iuiw-«nirninEllDliii<l— hl<iiMTftw!i 3m
TnUt. PHcr Hill, iriihi f>r4nl'k Chcne-i
.lUnafH (nnlfiirliHllMiannrrB kinds,— „ SX
Ta'Ht. nSbcn AtMli^rIni!kM|~-tho I^ki^
Um Ilghl iBHw o( Fa«i fm Ihe HiiaUn
ImTi^niinl nuHicht-MuriHT,
To Mr. Hmlni, WHiJM, N»B.flhjt-lhr
To Mr. RotoM ji'linilii^' KrlmuUUeTI!
of (cniM fSnihibnuttn- J:
Td Mn. Huiilrtk-n luFk.unint — t'llu'i
HrnnlliiCi: uii] iMhcr Liim
X<> Ih« Hinc-liK iDinii lu liri. 11.4 »:t1
' Rpbuutprv of hb nuniiia— prontl lUU ir
T>Hk
To 1
ToHr.
xa.
nA Smigi ud food idikr
Td Dr. Bl
-UllUlTlHIIDdllthl
la Mn. Duiln)— aUHl
rati of «I)tW)t (OHRT
SSP*
u luiiul Ihe nino
— Auld I.BI1fl Siyiifr—
P. C'vmt-ot Mirin n
•-iStS
Bu m, tlw Poaf I BnUiir— h
TdM
ItuJ.lKlif— inUi
"ST^
™«r
;4i
'it
EE™
n<.-B. _
rutuKStai
^lo™.
rrithfTtHiiTm— tlienaKrfr-VmnfoTlhflm. U
To ktn. Iluii1n]<— ihe ■■ocl Filconn— lUltadi, _ 31
" m Mr. Cuuolncluni— fttnuUr luxicn, SI
in Mr. I>ttn Hi1i_" 1 ninr TMK.Itr Cll"" "
-Dimnjgili Ittnirm— Book» — Note, mO\ ■
3ri.ni— SwfiltU
, Cunatpglun — fncDdlf »nHm. i ■ i ii
COMTiSlfS,
xiit
tMt$.
From Mr. CwmriiHthim' • Song for each of the
IbMa.
HWM n — tuxxWMirawwo—
ofaPPtftumoinaiUd-^
>«<WiiW»«W«>*XW— *— »
S49
To Cmivflofd Tfelt, Iiiq»— wcommtnrtlng a young
Friiodg I I .«»<— n«.i>ii>#pii«»»iwi ■■■■■ S49
litiloBi lo hit MifffMeiMit Air hb oOetal pfooio*
1791.
Td Mr. ramlnxhani^Ekty on Ml« Burnet,
Tb Mr. PiMcr liUl^Emy on Poverty,
Fran A. r. Tytler, EM|.'-Tam o' Shantn,^
To Mr. Tytler-in WMwer,
w^m0m0i^^mimm^m0>^
531
US
To Mn. bunlop— broken arnv— Elegy on Mi«
Bnme^^ rentcniBrance, <■«■<»«■»>*■»■<»««<■«»»»»». oo*
tb Lftdy Mvy CoosCible-a SnuflT-box. ^^-...^ S53
T» Mn. GnuiMn of Ftntry— Ballad on Queen
Mary- -tin PocTi gratitude, *.»..»i«. .>«.«*.«»..»..» 353
Ftam ttw R*r. PilnSpal Baird— Miehad Bruot.^ 353
To Pitedpal Babd-HoOMng erery aid for pub-
llibing Brue<i Work!,..* >»». 354
To Dr.
Ta_tlia Bar. Arobibeld AUiMin— hi* Eiuyf on
and Ballad*— Zeleuoo-^pri.
To Mr. Cnnntaighain— Song, " Thereat never bo
paeaa ttu Janua eone naine, <»<» «■<»<!. omo*.*.^. 356
Tb Mr. DateO. Faotor to Lord Glencaiin>-thc
fteA grief far hi* LofdihiiM^ «i^ to »(te°<l
theFttoerali ..« .'..,.«.... ■ ■ . 356
Vtain Dr. Moora— eritlctaei Tam </ Shanter, and
Mmt pi—i mllrif* the PoetT* remarlM on Zc.
hiwi wlilwi him to be more dury of giving
Cnpie*— and to uie the modem English, ^......^ 356
Tb Mn. Dunlop-»« domoktle occurrence cxclU'
riva advantages of humble life, <»^-,#»..«» ....«.>. 557
To Mr.^Cuanmi^hBm— In behalf of a persecuted
From ttaa Bail of Buchan— crowning of 'rhomstm's
To Mr. Thonai Sloan, ManchMTer— disappoint
■MMt pirifurincwi raoomroended— Tlie i*oec'a ^
flunilKe Karl of Buehan— auggesU Harvi-st-lioinc ^
Mr a tiMRW lo the Muee, »mr»t»»»*»»r «. «»<»*..>»».»»» im!!
Tb Lady E* Cnaalngham— >eundulenoe on the
dbalh of her Brother, Lord Glenc»lm,>..,.,>.»— . 360
IW Mr. Robert Almlie-a Mind dijeatod. 3U>
ftom Sir John Whltefoord— Lament fur l^nl
A. P. Tytler, Esq.— the WhkUe— the U-
^561
P<««NH
>i#i> Pp^<»#<x<»^»*»^»i^»
Ta MIm Davie*— Jrtitlinantat ■ *»lth some hmu as
10 a Raoicai weiorm, ***.*« *»«»..»«*» »»»»<» »««»»»»» p»>. (Mia
Til Mr*. Donlop— with the Death-Sung— lliglu
To Cantt^ Gro*e-4auds Profeswr liugald Stew.
— Trs
Ta the lamc^Wltch Sturie* of Kbrk-Alloway, — 363
Ti MiK Dunlop animadversion* of the Boaid—
maHdoiu inainuatlon*— « cup of kindoeM,«— ^ Tif>\
?'% Mr. W. Sroellle^-lntroductory of Mrk RiJdd, 364
• Mr. W. Wicoll admiration of, and gratUude
Ta MriCvnolMham--<he Puef * Arms, .^..^ — 3(>.>
'1 « Mr. Clavte - bivItatSon to eome to the Country, 366
Ta Mflk Dunlop— « Platonic attadiment and a
MO^— Religion ludlqicnciUe to make Man
Ti Mr. Cn«Blngnam_ nocturnal ravinj{», ^^„ ,*, 367
To Mis* B. of York— mnralian over the riumca.
medleys of human IntereourNw ,■■■! ■_*■ 371
Ti Mnw twmlnp dWhrenee tai Farmiut; for mm^s
fair aMs Parmlng lor a&oioer, »■ ». .. i>»«i»»<a»»««»*i«»w woh
Tb Patrick MiU«, Baq. of DBb«lnta»-«illMB*t
To John FnaetoEnklnaof Mar, Esq — the PoetT*
indenendaoca of lantiment, and particularly hh
opinions as to Reform doquently Justified, • 37f^
To Mr. Robert Almlie — Spunkle— •ebookraft
caught by contact, »,*»»*'— ■»»»»»»»»»» tt .■« ■..■»■. 373-4
To Mus K'^— delicate Umttery to a Beauty, ...— 374
To I^y Gleueaim- gratitude to her Family—
ftom an independent Exciseman, 374^
To Mis* Chalmers— a curiou* analysla which diewe
" a Wight nearly as miserable as a Poet," .««..• 575
To John M'Murdo, Esq.— out of debt, ........... 375-6
LETTERS, 1794, 1795, 1796. •
Td the Earl of Buchan— with " Brace'* Addmib" 87B
To Mrs. Hicldel — Dumfries Theatricals,.**.,.^..^— nfi
To Mr. — --• the Pwt'* Dream* of Exdae promo*
and Iofaftar<«oated
To
tion and literary leinire, ««»
D Mn. Riddel— Thea^kal*
puppies.
To the same— gin<horse routine of Excite buainesa, .177
To the same— effects o( a cool reception,. ,» ....„^ 377
To the same— a spice of ciprice w.. .. .—. 378
I'o the same— Arm yvt coiiciliatiug , ., Sti
To John Syine, Esq.— ^waises of Mr. A.-^Song on
To MiM -^ — in defence of hi* reputation— ra-
claims nis Mt>« «»»'..■ «i.»i>».».»j«...«i....i ■.«.«»,»*■<» oi9'9
To Mr Cuunincham— a Mind Di«ea*ed Rdlgioa
necesory to jlan,..».»»«>»ni«i p«.i..«<»'<w»—xwp^wi> 97w
To a Lady — from the Shitdc*, .».. ..> ■■wi.w.wii»
To the Earl of Uleiicalm— the Poet's gratltodi to
his laic Hrotlier,*..,..*.^^ «.
To Dr. Aiuicrsou— Ins Work, the Livea of the
To Mrs. Riddel— «(>titarv confinemcut Kood to re*
claim Sinneri— Ode for llirth-day of WaUUng.
To Mr. J.tmet Johnson— Aiougs and prctjucts for
XllV M «IMymHg#»#»»<»»#i<M»i ^00^*s0>0i0m000m0m00*^00<^m'^i0>^<0^99m»m MW&
To Mr. Millvr of I)MU«inion— <tedinvs to be a r&
Silnr ctiiitributor to the lNx:l's Comer of the
oniini; Chronicle, *,#..»*.«>..»<».» .w«,.»»...».w<».» 381
To Mr. davin llamilton^tlw Poet recjinmcuda a
pirtictilor rr^imen to liim,*...,i .^..»..«. w«» SM
Tt) Mr. Samuel Clarke— iKtiitence after cxoms •* 5W
To Mr. Alexander FinuUter^-^upervisor— " So
mudi for >»clieincs,"^..~>..>^>>»^^.,.^^.>...«....^ .'S5
To tlic Editors of the Mnruiug ClironiHe— its in>
(lC|ldlft^*lld*f 00 0^0>0^m0m0i^^»'*-m00 000msm0^mm0m0000^'00^mm-0m^m 3nO
To .Mr. W. Duubar— Ncw-Vear wi»hes,.>..i,. 3!}J
To Mus KtHitviivUt^— with a Piolusue for her be-
383
r#*rf#^>^»ie<p^<<*w<i»[*< »0<0m^mmm 000m
fW*lllf<^#i«tf^ »00m000»0
'i'o Mnu Diinloi>— cares nr' Die Married Lifo— DutC'
flies TheairlcaU — Cow Iter's Ta^k— the Poef*
Serait-book, — 304-A
To Nlr. Ilenni of I leroii— l\>Utkal Bailail*—
Drcuins of Excise promotion, ^
sas
To the Right lion. W. Pitt— in behalf of tha
OtfOlS I IIS«lllvr»f 0000 0m0m0»0>0i00t0m000m0mmm0mm0000mmm0m0mtm <
To tlie Magip'rates o( Dumfricft— Flee School E-
UUfftUOtlf 0» 00 09^000 0n000>0^0000m 00000000100^0 0»>000m000m0^0m vO§
TitW
Tilha
Family InBietlbu— coodolenee, «* 369
and uncertainty of Life—
TlHSfeirtOiiiliam, Eaq^uatUia* himarif Mala^t
iiiiliMVi oTdbiMloa to tha British Contti.
970
■WWMM*IM'>«MMIPMM«lf#<
po »F» m i«..»g«w»i«»
y» Mni Piaiiif ■ tiM l^m'l nmwvca i>ifet>-sri-
To Mrs. Dunlop in IxMulon — Mr. I'hoinsou**
Work— acting Sujicrvisur— New Year wishes-.
AJla I»l ^^9T^f0m0000<i00l00'0^l0'0-^000m0>00 0m<00 0m00 00^wm00000^000 v9i**V
To Mm. Riddel— AiuKshania— the Mus«* stiil pta*
aent.
900000'000l00i00t00t0^000
To Mrs. Dtiiilu;>— in afllictloii,^
0000>00I0<0I0000^I000
TO Mr*. Riddel— ou Birth<day loyalty, ,^.».,..,,.—
To Mr. Janiei Jolinson.-.the Museum— a coovum-
liur iilnei* banits over tlia Poet,.,.,.,,,..,.^...,^
To Mr. Cunningham— (Vom the Brow, Sra^batJu
ing QuartiTSiiTind picture. - .-i. ij„ij_. fff
To Mm uyms— TnHn the Brow*4tiragthcpci^
but total dreay of nnM**f, i ,, ■■.i,,^^.., fff
To Mrif pu?tl>>t>-i l«H(iur*vli| t^t^^^^w^m^*^ M
jdv
CONTENTS OP THE POET'S CORRESPONDENCE
WITH MR. GEORGE THOMSON.
Xfe
*i^
PttJFt
tnm Mr. TAMMon^idllcltSnff the Poet's aiA to '
tht Select MekxUei, ^.^.^.^ »«,......«..........^ 391
Hm Poetfe OHwer — fkankly cmbwkiog In the
•r'^fct— «>M»l*iP| III Mil I, I...MW. »»».».■».. .«.«,,, «i» 391— S
ffVom Mr. ThomKm— Tiews of c«»ductinc the
Work— end with 1 1 Sonet for New Vene«. 39f
thiair^** O tew ye boniiie Lesley.'* •
393
Wrom the fHiet—wlth *• Ye Banks and Braes and
Streams around the Castle oT Montgomery,".^ 394
nma Mr. Thomson— criticisms and currecuons,^ 39i
JniMn the Poet— admits some eorrecdons, " but
OMnot alter b^nnle Lesley"— additional VerM
te the *« Lea Rig," 393
FMD the Poet— wHh ** Auld Rob Morris" and
*' PoorUth Cauld" and
393
•«
nenGray."
Ih0 Poet^-with
•• Oalla Water/
Tooa MT. HMMMODr-laudatory uvt raTours rc>
Mived-detalls thenian of his Work— P. S. from
the Honourable ^ Erskine— « brother Poet
iMd contributor,*
mmm09^m^m^m^m^
r^^^Nr^ww
396
Vlroaa the Poet— approYcs of the detail^-oflnfrs
Matter aneedoCic— the Song «• Lord Gregory"—
KngUsh and Scots sets of it, .,.,., 396^7
Piom the Poet— wHh ** Wandering Willie," 397
9wm the Poet— •« Qpen the Door to me O," 397
Piom the Poet— •• Ttue-bearted was he," 397
From Mr. 1 horosnn— with complete list of Songs,
•ad tether detalb of the Work. 397-4
■ the Poet— with " The Soldier's return"-
Mer or the MUI." 398
9*
the Poet— Song making his hobby— ufftrs
valrteMe hints for enriching and improving the
^e<wkj<w< ■«r»ii«i >««■■»»»<■«■«■ mm
Fsom Mr. Thomson— in answer.
the Poet— tether hints and critical remarks
Song on a celebrated Toast to suit
398-9
ZifJ
Tune, ** Bonnie Dundee,"
399
Wmm the Poet— with ** llie last time I eame o'er
the moor," - .,«. 400
FVpm Mr. rhomsou— excuses hit taste as against
the Poefs,f 1 11 » .ii.^w...*.. .11 >.»...■ W..J.I.. .. 40O
Vroai the Poet-^togmatieally »et against altering, 400
1 he Poet to Mr. Thomtuo— Kraser the Hautboy
Ptafap— Tune and Song, «• Tlte Ouakci's Wife^
— •^Blythe hae I htcn on yon Hill." 400-1
The same— mad arabMoo— **Logan Rrae^— l-'rag-
■cnt from Witherspoon's CoUectinn— •« O gin
my lore were yon Red Rose.", , 401
Mr ThomsQii<«4n answer a change of Partners in
The Poet to Mr. Thomson— Tune and Air of
*■ Bonnie Jean"— the Poet* s Heroines.,, 40S
The maie— a remlttanre acknowledged—** Klow-
OTB ef the Porest**— the Authoress— Plnkerton*s
AntJent Ballads pronhectes, , 402
Mr. Thomson to xna Poet—Airs waiting the Mu*
WiS MNim, i—»i«*«*p<«»««>*»i'»»*»»i >» ■.'«»—»i. w» ».■»■.» 403
Tim Poet to Mr> Thomson— Tune, ** Robin A-
.4hir— «• Phillis the Fail* to It— "Cauld KaU
403
Mr. Thomson— grateful for the Poet's •• ra-
hmd Bplstke"— wants Verses for •* Down the
" I Davkr—osentions Drawings for the Work, 403
tfw Peet— Tune ** Robin Adaii" again—
Prom^lhe Poet-widi Kew Song to ** Allan Wa>
From the Mune— with Song •• Whistle and I'll
come to you, mv l.ad," and •* Phillis the Fair,"
to the *« Muckin' o' Geordie's byre," 404
From the saro»— ** Cauld Kair— a Gloamiu' Shot
From the same—" Dainty Davie*— four lines of
Song and four of Chorus, ...>.....»-„^..»«.. 405
From Mr. 'Iliomson— profuse acknowledgments
lor numy favourt, «.*« «■«. *.»■ «... .«<^«» »»»..» .w«»nii «n vo
From the Poet— Peter Pindar—** Scots wha hae
wi' Wallace bled"—" So roav God defend the
cause of truth and liberty at ne did tliat day,".. 405
From the aamc— with Song ** Behold the hour the
B(Mt arrives,* to the Highland Air ** Oran gaoiL" iO$
From Mr. Thomson—** liruoe's Addresi"— (he Air
" Lewis Gordon" better for it than ** Hey tuttle
tat ie**— verbal criticutms, <..»<■.«■»»■..««»*».. «■»>..»■ 406
From the Poet— additional Verses to ** Dainty
Davie"— *• Through the wood, Laddie^— •• Cow.
den.knowe^"— ** Laddie lie near mc^— the Poclls
form of Song making— •* Gill Morrioe"— '* High,
knd Laddi^— ** Auld .Sir Simeon"—" Fee him
Father"—** There's n.ie luck about the House"
—the finest of Lo\'p Ballads. " Saw ye my Fa.
ther"— " lodlin hame" — sends *' Aukl Laotf
.^yne"— farther notices of other Songs and BaU
From the Poet— rriccts the verbal criticism on the
Ode, *' Druce's Address," .»««.«.„»..— ., «. 40ft
From Mr. Thomson — Stricture* on the Poet's no>
ticM of the above Songs-^again nibbling at the
From the I^oct— *< I'he Ode plea>es me w much I
cannot alter it"— sends Song " Where are the
Joys 1 hae met in the roomin*,".. ........««». ..>..» 409
From the Poct'^-icnli •' Deiiidrd Swain" and
" Raving Winds aroond her blowing^— Airs
and Songs, to adopt ur rcjevt— diflbreners of
From the same—" Thine am 1 my Faithful Fair"
—to the *• Quaher't Wife." which is Just the
Gaelic Air ** Liggeram cosh," ..«...«.«».» ...» 410
Frtnn Mr. Thomsun — in answer ■ 410
From the Poet— Sung to *' My Jo Ja ct,*,.. , .^« 410
From Mr. Thomson— proposed confeicnoe— Re*
marks on Drawings and Sonc«. .,.»*. ..«,^ 410
From the Poet— ramc suUects— Plcyel— *a tUtenu
—whereby hinderance oi iheWork— Song " The
Banks of Crce," .... .....i..*....*..! ..»...!■■.■». »■«.<<«■«. 411
From the same—*' I'he ausptduus {teriod pre^
nant with the happiness of MiUioiu**— Inserip.
tion on a Cony of the Work presented to Mns
Grahem of Fintry, <..»....».i. ...■■.. ■ >•*,,, ».i.«.«... 411
From Mr. Thomson -in anawer,,, , .,..., 411
From the Poet^wiih Song
awav,''
On the Seas and fsr
419
From Mr. Thomson— criticises that Songrevovly, 411
From the Poet— withdrawing it—** making a Song
is like begettine a Son*— sends «• Ca' the yewct
to the ftnOWCS, ■■ .. . ... i»< .■ m .» .»«■ rmm^^^ammm^mmmmr^r^lm 'IS
Prom the same— Irish Air— sends Song to it ** Sae
flaxen were her ringlets*— Poet's taste in Music
like Frederic of Prussia's— h« begun " O let me
in this ae nighf— Epigram, 41f
From Mr. 'J nomson — profuse of acknowledg.
From the same^Peter Pindar's task completed—
Ritfoii'sC(»lkctigi»-4rcesingupcif OldSongi^ ill
cotrttNtt.
tv
flom th* iPoaU*" Cntgfo-bitni Wood* and the
lnfOlM Rgdpt Ibr Soog iiwkiM--SoBg *' Saw
y my Pbcly"— «• Th« IH»lC"~**13oooelitheKr
m»i Cbc PoeCs— *' Whistle o'er the lave &rr hit
— eo is *• BIythe wm AtT uoOm Sanaf " How
leoff and ilnanr Is the nkht**— '* Let not Wo-
Bian e^sr eomplatar— " SIcep'tt thou"— Eatt
Indian Aliu-Soi« " The AukT Man," 414
From Mr. Thomson— In acknowledgment, and
withflgthereoromiislons,^,^ ■.^. 415
From the Post- thanks for Ritaon—Sonff of Chlo-
ri»— LoTe, Conjugal and Platonic—" Chloc^—
•• Ijwie wi' the Untwhite kxkf^— '* Maria's
dwelling*—** Banks and Braes o* bonnie Doon"
— Reciiie to m£ce a SeoCs Tune— humble re«
^oesK for a Copy of the Work to give to a fe>
male friend, ^..<— ,..«.^..i,.,«»».^».,. 4IC-17
From Mr. Thomson -^n answer— criticicm»—^ends
three Copies, and as welcome to >0 as to a pinch
of snuC -..«^ ,.. 0. 417
From the Poel— Duet completed— sends Songs
•« O Phlllj happy be that day"—*' Contented
«r Btdir— •* Canst thou leare me thus my
Kiifty"— nemariu on Songs and the Stock and
From Mr. Tbomaon— modest acknowledgments-*
PwCuies for the Work, »■.»..»».«» ..■..<.«.»...»... 419
From the Poet— with Song «' Nannie^s awa**— Pic
I— originality a coy feature in
A man's a man for a'
*— whidi shows that Song making Is not
eonfinad to love aari wine new sec of '* Crai-
gie^Mm Wood," .......................................^ 419
From Mr. Thomson— In acknowledgment, 419
From «M Peec— with, •< O let me in OiU ae Night,"
Fkmn the asme ebiise of sweet Eoelefechan— air,
«* Well gang nae mair to yon Town," b worthy
From the Pote— with four Sottgi, «* TW Wood
Urk*— «' Long, kmg the Nighr— •• 1 hair gnma
cf swtct MyrUcsT— *' 'Twas na her bomile bine
Een was my ruin, «»>• ^t^mtmmf m ■■■» <■ ■»■ « miK— «— — —
FYom Mr. Thomaoo— actoowledgmanti picCurm
for the work.
P4WMW«WWWI»WMW
From the Poet— with two Songs. ** How cruel am
the Parent^—** Mark vonder PompT* -add^,
•< Vour Tkllor could not be mora minctual,"-.*
From the sam» acknowledgment of a presentr*—
From Mr. Thomson— Clarke's Air to Mallet's Bal-
lad of •* WiUlam and Margaret," «——.»
From the Poet— with four Songs and Verses,
** O Whistle and 1*11 come to ye, my Lad"—** O
this is no my ain LassJcT*— •« Now Spring haa
dad the Grove in Green"—*' O bonnie was yoa
rosy Brier,*— Inscription on his Poems prtatnt-
cd to a young Lady, ».»«o.«««w«<».i. «i.i <■!■.»■
From Mr. Thomson in acknowledgment, «^«-
From the Poet— with English Song, ** Forkirn,
my Love,""
m^^^m^m .pp..
»«P>«.HNpi.l.<*PWMk«pl«pipipi«|«|«pi.
««
From the sanMs-with Song, ** Last May a braf
Wfjoa cam' down the lang Glen,"— a Frag-
From Mr. Thomson— in answer,
From the saroi-— «fter an awAil pause, «,.»i».»«i....
From the Poet— acknowledges a Present to Mrs.
B.— sends Song, ** Hey for a Lass wi' a Toch-
err
4St
Ml
4flS
From Mr. Thomson— in answer,..^
From the Poet— health has deserted him, not the
Muse,
mmmmmm0mm
From Mr. Thomson— 4n answer ,.,—
From the Poet— with Song, ** Here's a health to
them thalTs awa." » p ■■ «» ■ >■
From the same— announces his purpose to reviat
all his Songs,«»p.w. ■*■».<■ piiw..,..**.*! »n ■>■»■■■■■»■■
From the same— at Sea-bathing— deprassed ami la
extremity t »».■ «■ p»«»»««pip»»»». imm.*. ■n—— — — '
From Mr. Thomaoo— with a Remittinoa^i
4H
4fl
4M
LIFE
OF
ROBERT BURNS.
CHAPTER I.
r
CosrkXTfu — Tk€ Poet 9 Birth, 1769— C/Vctfmjfoffrej and peculiar CkMracUr 4jf km
amd Molher-^HardMhipa of hit Early Yeara — Sovrces, auch at thejf wert, ofhi§ MetdtJL
Improremfnt — Comnuncelh Love and Poetry at 16.
** My father was a (aimer upon the Carrick Border,
And soberly he brought me up in decency and order.
•t
Robert Burks was bom on the 25th of January 1759. in a ckj-lHdC
cottage, about two miles to the south of the town of Ayr, and in Uie im*
mediate vicinity of the Kirk of Alloway, and the ** Auld Brig o' Doon.**
About a week afterwards, part of the frail dwelling, which his father had
constructed with his own hands, gave way at midnight;. and the infant
poet and his mother were carried through the storm, to the shelter of a
neighbouring hovel. The father, William JBumes or Bumnts, (for ao he
spelt his name), was the son of a farmer in Kincardineshire, whence he re*
moved at 19 years of age, in consequence of domestic embanrassmenta.
The farm on which the family lived, formed part of the estate forfeited,
in consequence of the rebellion of 1715, by the noble house of Keith
Marischall ; and the poet took pleasure in saying, that his humble ancea-
tors shared the principles and the fall of their chiefs. Indeed* after Wil«
liam Burnes settled in the west of Scotland, there prevailed a vague no-
tion that he himself had been out in the insurrection of 1746-6 ; but thongh
Robert would fain have interpreted his father's silence in favour <^ a taJb
which flattered his imagination, his brother Gilbert always treated it aa a
mere fiction, and such it was. Gilbert found among his fiither's piqpers a
certificate of the minister of his native parish, testifying that ** the bearer,
Willixun Burnes, had no hand in the late wicked rebellion." It is easy ta
auppose that when any obscure northern stranger fixed himaelf in thoae
days in the Low Country, such rumours were hkelj enough to he circtt*
hUed concerning bint
9
. r
•
ii LIFE OF ROBERT BURKS.
William Burned laboured for some years in the neighbourhood of Edin-
burgh as a gardener, and then found his way into Ayrshire. At the time
when Robert was bom, he was gardener and overseer to a gentleman of
small estate, Mr. Ferguson of Doonholm ; but resided on a few acres of
land, which he had on lease from another proprietor, and where he had
originally intended to establish himself as a nurseryman. He married
Agnes Brown in December 1757, and the poet was their first-bom. Wil-
liam Bumes seems to have been, in his humble station, a man eminently
entitled to respect. He had received the ordinary learning of a Scottish
parish school, and profited largely both by that and by his own experience
m the world. *< I liave met with few," (said tlie poet, afler he had him-
self seen a good deal of mankind), ** wlio understood fncn, their manners,
and their ways, equal to my &ther." He was a strictly religious man.
There exists in his handwriting a little manual of theology, in the form
of a dialogue, which he drew up for the use of his chil^n, and from
which it appears that he had adopted more of the Arminian than of the
Calvinistic doctrine ; a circumstance not to be wondered at, when we con-
uder that he had been educated in a district which was never numbered
«mong the strongholds of the Presbyterian church. The affectionate re-
verence with which his children ever regarded him, is attested by all who
have described him as he appeared in his domestic circle ; but there needs
no evidence beside that of the poet himself, who has painted, in colours
that will never fade, *' the saint, the father, and the husband,** of The
CMoar't Satwrday Night.
Agnes Brown, the wife of this good man, is described as '' a very sagaci-
ous woman, without any appearance of forwardness, or awkwardness of man-
ner;" and it seems that, in features, and, as he grew up, in general address,
the poet resembled her more than his father. She had an inexhaustible store
of ballads and traditionary tales, and appears to have nourished his infant
imagination by this means, while her husband paid more attention to « the
weightier matters of the law.'* These worthy people laboured hard for
the support of an increasing family. William was occupied with Mr. Fer-
guson's service, and Agnes contrived to manage a small dairy as well as
her children. But though their honesty and diligence merited better things,
their condition continued to be very uncomfortable ; and our poet, (in his
letter to Dr. Moore), accounts distinctly for his being bom and bred ** a
very poor man's son," by the remark, that ** stubborn ungainly integrity,
and headlong ungovernable irascibility, arc disqualifying circumstances."
These defects of temper did not, however, obscure the sterling worth
of William Bumes in die eyes of jNIr. Ferguson ; who, when his garde-
ner expressed a wish to try his for tuncon a farm of his, tlien vacant, and
confessed at the same time his inability to meet the charges o^ stocking it,
at once advanced £100 towards the removal of the dilficulty. Bumes ac-
cordingly removed to this farm (tliat of Mount Olipli&nt, in the parish of
Ayr) at Whitsuntide 1766, when his eldest son was between six and seven
years of age. But the soil proved to be of the most ungrateful descrip-
ticm ; and Mr. Ferguson dying, and his afluirs falling into tlie hands of a
ItturshyZicftyr, (who afterwards sat for his picture in tlie Ttra Dogs\ Bumes
was glad to give up his bargain at the qnd of six years. He then removed
about ten miles to a larger and better farm, that of Lochlea, in the parish
of Taibdlton. But here, afler a short interval of prosperity, some unfbr^
tunate misunderstanding took place as to the conditions of the lease ; th«
Llf E Of R06ERT fiUR^S. tit
dispute W^ deferred to arbitration ; and, after three years of suspense, the
result involved Bumes in ruin. The worthy man lived to know of this de»
cision ; but death saved him from witnessing its necessary consequences.
He died of consumption on the 13th February 1784. Severe labour, and
hopes only renewed to be baffled, had at last exhausted a robust but irri*
table structure and temperament of body and of mind.
In the midst of the harassing struggles which found this termination^
William Bumes appears to have used his utmost exertions for promoting ^
the mental improvement of his children — a duty rarely neglected by Scot-
tish parents, however humble their station, and scanty their means maj
be. Robert was sent, in his sixth year, to a small school at Allowar
Miln, about a mile from the house in which he was born ; but Campbell,
tlie teacher, being in the course of a few months removed to another
situation, Bumes and four or five of his neighbours engaged Mr. John
Murdoch to supply his place, lodging him by tums in their own housefly
and ensuring to him a small payment of money quarterly. Robert Bums,
and Gilbert his next brother, were the aptest and the favourite pupils of
this worthy man, who survived till very lately, and who has, in a letter
published at length by Currie, detailed, with honest pride, the part which
he had in the early education of our poet. He became the frequent in-
mate and confidential friend of the family, and speaks with enthusiasm of,
the virtues of William Bumes, and of the peaceful and happy life of his
humble abode.
** He was (says Murdoch) a tender and affectionate father ; he took plea«
sure in leading his children in the path of virtue ; not in driving them, as
some parents do, to the performance of duties to which they themselves are
averse. He took care to find fault but very seldom ; and therefore, when
he did rebuke, he was listened to with a kind of reverential awe. A look
of disapprobation was felt ; a reproof was severely so : and a stripe with
the tawz^ even on the skirt of tlie coat, gave heart-felt pain, produced a
loud lamentation, and brought forth a flood of tears.
" He had the art of gaining the esteem and good-will of those that were
labourers under him. I think I never saw him angry but twice : the one
time it was with the foreman of the band, for not reaping the field as he
was desired ; and the other time, it was with an old man, for using smutty
inuendos and double cntetidres.''-^—^* In this mean cottage, of which I my-
self was at times an inhabitant, I really believe there dwelt a larger por-
tion of content than in any palace in Europe. T/te Cottars Saturday Night
will give some idea of the temper and manners that prevailed there."
The boys, under the joint tuition of Murdoch and their father, made ra-
pid progress in reading, spelling, and writing ; they committed psalms and
hymns to memory with extraordinary ease — the teacher taking care (as he
tells us) that they shoidd understand the exact meaning of each word in
the sentence ere they tried to get it by heart. " As soon," says he, " as
they were capable of it, I taught them to turn verse into its natural prose
order ; sometimes to substitute synonymous expressions for poetical words ;
and to supply all the ellipses. Robert and Gilbert were generally at the
upper end of the class, even when ranged with boys by far tlieir seniors.
The books most commonly used in the school were the Spelling Book.
the New TesiamerU^ the BibUy Mason's Collection of Prose and Verse, and
JPisker's Englislt Grammar.*'-^^* Gilbert always appeard to me to possess a
liTely imaginationi and to be more of the wit; than Rcbert I at«
V
h UP£ OF ROBERT BURNS.
tempted to teach them a h'ttle church-music. Here they were left far be«
liiml by all the rest of the school. Robertas ear, in particular, was remark-
ably dull, and his voice untunable. It was long before I could get them
to distinguish one tune from anotlier. Robert's countenance was general-
ly grave and expressive of a serious, contemplative, and thoughtful mind.
Gilbert's face said, Mirths with thee I mean to live ; and certainly, if any
person who knew the two boys, had been asked which of them was the
^Biost likely to court the Muses, he vi^ould never have guessed that Robert
kad a propensity of tliat kind."
" At those years," says the poet himself, in 1787, " I was by no means
a favourite wiUi anybody. I was a good deal noted for a retentive memory,
a stubborn sturdy something in my disposition, and an enthusiastic idiot
piety. I say idiot piety, because I was then but a child. Though it cost
the schoolmaster some thrashings, I made an excellent English scholar ;
aod by the time I was ten or eleven years of age, I was a critic in substan-
tivesy verbs, and particles. In my infant and boyish days, too, I owed
much to an old woman who resided in the family, remarkable for her
Ignorance* credulity, and superstition. She had, I suppose, the largest
collection in the country of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies,
brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles, dead-lights,
vraiths, apparitions, cantraips, giants, enchanted towers, dragons, and other
trumpery. This cultivated the latent seeds of poetry ; but had so strong
an effect on my imagination, that to this hour, ia my nocturnal rambles, I
jometimes keep a sharp look-out in suspicious places ; and though nobody
can be more sceptical than I am in such matters, yet it oflen takes an ef-
£xrt of philosophy to shake off these idle terrors. The earliest composition
that I recollect taking pleasure in, was lite Vision ofMirza^ and a hymn
of Addison's> beginning, How are tliy servants blest, O Lord f I particular-
ly remember one half-stanza, which was music to my boyish ear —
** For though on dreadful whirk wc hung
High on the broken wave — '*
I met with these pieces in Masons English Collection, one of my school-
books. The two first boolcs I ever read in private, and which gave me
Biore pleasure than any two books I ever read since, wore, Tbe Life of Han-
ftibalf and The History of Sir WiUiam Wallace. Hannibd gave my young
ideas such a turn, that I used to strut in raptures up and down afler the
recruiting drum and bagpipe, and wish myself tall enough to be a soldier ;
while the story of Wallace poured a tide of Scottish prejudice into my
veins, which will boil along there till the flood-gates of life shut in eternal
rest."
Murdoch continued his instructions until the family had been about two
years at Mount Oliphant — when he lefl for a time that part of the country.
** There being no school near us," says Gilbert Burns, •• and our little ser-
"vices being already useful on the farm, my father undertook to teach us arith-
metic in the winter evenings by candle hght — and in this way my two elder
sisters received all the education they ever received." Gilbert tells an anec-
dote which must not be omitted here, since it furnishes an early instance
of the liveliness of his brother's imagination. Murdoch, being on a visit
to the family, read aloud one evening part of the tragedy of Titu%Andro-
picus-— the circle listened with the deepest interest until he came to Act
ly sf;, 5| where J^avinia 19 introduced ** with her handf cuf pfl^ ^od ber
LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. V
tonigue cut out** At this the children entreated, with one voice, in an
Hgooy of distress, that their friend would read no more. " If ye will not
he«r the play out,** said William Bumes, " it need not be lefl with you.**
— «« If it be left,** cries Robert, « I will bum it." His father was about
to diide him for this return to Murdoch*s kindness — but the good young
man interfere.d, saying he liked to see so much sensibility, and left 'J%e
School far Lace in place of his truculent tragedy. At this time Robert
was nine years of age. << Nothing," continues Gilbert Bums, •< could bo
more retired than our general manner of living at Mount Oliphant ; we
rarely saw any body but the members of our own family. There were no
boys of our own age, or near it, in the neighbourhood. Indeed the greatest
part of the land in the vicinity was at that time possessed by shopkeepers,
and people of that stamp, who had retired from business, or who kept tlieir
form in the TM>untry, at the same time that they followed business in town.
My &ther was for some time almost the only com{)anion we had. He con*
▼ersed fomiliarly on all subjects with us, as if we had been men ; and was
at great pains, while we accompanied him in the labours of the farm, to
lead the conversation to such subjects as might tend to increase our know-
ledge, or confirm us in virtuous habits. He borrowed Salmons Gtogra^
plaoal Grammar for us, and endeavoured to make us acquainted with the
utuation and history of the different countries in the world ; while, from a
book-flociety in Ayr, he ]>rocured for us the reading of DerhanCs Pkynco
and Atirth Theoloffi/, and Rayn Wisdom of God in the Creation^ to give us
some idea of astronomy and natural history. Robert read all tliese books
with an avidity and industry scarcely to be equalled. My father had beea
a subscriber to Stachhowics IlisforT/ of the BiUe, From this Robert coU
lected a competent knowledge of ancient history ; for tio book uxu so vo^
humnoMS as to slacken his industry^ or so antiquated as to damp his researches,*'
A collection of letters by eminent English authors, is mentioned as having
fallen into Burns*s hands much about the same time, and greatly delight^
him.
When Bums was about thirteen or fourteen years old, his father sent
him and Gilbert " week about, during a summer quarter,'* to the parish
school of Dalrymple, two or three miles distant from Mount Oliphant, for
the improvement of their penmanship. The good man could not pay two
fees ;. or his two boys could not be spared at the same time from the la*
bour of the farai ! ** We lived very poorly," says the poet. << I was a dex-
terous ploughman for my age ; and the next eldest to me was a brother,
{Gilbert), ilmo could drive the plough very well, and help me to thrash the
com. A novel writer might perhaps have viewed these scenes with some
aatisfiiction, but so did not I. Mv indignation yet boils at the recollection
ef the scoundrel factor's insolent letters, which used to set us all in tears.**
Gilbert Bums gives his brother *s situation at this period in greater detail
— -** To the bune tings of misfortune,'* says he, ** we could only oppose
hard labour and the most rigid economy. We lived very sparingly. For
several years butcher's meat was a stranger in the house, while all the
members of the fiunily exerted themselves to the utmost of their strength
and rather beyond it, in the labours of the farm. My brother, at the age
of thirteen, assisted in thrashing the crop of com, and at fifteen was the
principal labourer on the farm, for we had no hired servant, male or female*
llie anguiffh of mind we felt at our tender years, under these straits and
dificaltiesi was very great. To think of our father growing old (for ha was
W LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS.
DOW above fifly), broken down with the long-continued fatigues of his life«
with a wife and five other children, and in a declining state of circumstances,
these reflections produced in my brother's mind and mine sensations of the
deepest distress. I doubt not but the hard labour and sorrow of this pe-
riod of his life, was in a great measure the cause of that depression of spirits
with which Robert was so oden afflicted through his whole life afterwards*
At this time he was almost constantly afilicted in the evenings with a dull
headach, which, at a future period of his life, was exchanged for a palpita-
tion of ^e heart, and a threatening of fainting and suffocation in his bed, in
the night-time."
Tlie year afler this, Burns was able to gain tliree weeks of respite, one
before, and two aflcr the harvest, from tiie labours which were thus strain-
ing his youthful strength. His tutor Murdoch was now established in the
town of Ayr, and the boy spent one of these weeks in revising the English
grammar with him ; the other two were given to French. He laboured
enthusiastically in the new pursuit, and came home at the end of a fort-
night with a dictionary and a Telemaque, of which he made such use at his
leisure hours, by himself, that in a short time (if we may believe Gilbert)
he was able to imderstand any ordinary book of French prose. His pro-
gress, whatever it really amounted to, was looked on as sometliing of a
prodigy ; and a writing-master in Ayr, a friend of Murdoch, insisted that
Robert Burns must next attempt ihe rudiments of the Latin tongue. He
did so, but witli little perseverance, wc may be sure, since tlie results were
of no sort of value. Burns's Latin consisted of a few scraps of hackneyed
quotations, such as many that never looked into Uuddiman*s Rudiments
can apply, on occasion, quite as skilfully as he ever appears to have done.
The matter is one of no importance ; we might perhaps safely dismiss it
with parodying what Ben Jcnson en id of Shakspeare ; he had little
French, and no Latin. He had read, however, and read well, ere his six-
teenth year el^sed, no contcm])tible amount of the literature of his own
country. In addition to the books wliicli have already been mentioned, he
tells us that, ere the family quitted Mount Oliphant, he had read " the
Spectator^ some plays of Shakspeare, Pope, (the Homer included), Tull
and Dickson on Agriculture, Locke on the Human Understanding, Jus-
tice's JBritish Gardener's Directory, Boyle's Lectures, Taylor's Scripture
Doctrine of Original Sin, A Select Collection of English Songs, Hervey's
Meditations" (a book which has ever been very popular among the Scottish
peasantry), " and the Works of Allan Ramsay ;" and Gilbert adds to this
list Pamela^ (the first novel either of the brotbers read), two stray vo-
lumes of Peregrine Pickle, two of Count Fathom, and a single volume of
** some English historian," containing the reigns of James L, and his son.
The ^* Collection of Songs," says Burns, was my vade mecum, I pored
over them, driving my cart, or walking to labour, song by song, verse by
verse ; carefully noticing the true, tender, or sublime, from affectation or
fustian ; and I am convinced I owe to this practice much of my critic-crafl,
such as it is."
He derived, during this period, considerable advantages from the vicinity
of Mount Oliphant to the town of Ayr — a place then, and still, distinguish-
ed by the residence of many respectable gentlemen's families, and a con-
sequent elegance of society and manners, not common in remote provin-
cisJ situations. To his friend, Mr. Murdoch^ he no doubt owed, in the first
iiistancei whatever attentions he received there from people older as well
LIFE OP ROBERT BURNS. ^ni
as higher than himaelf : some such persons appear tohaV6 taken a pleasure
in lending him books, and surely no kindness could have been more useful
to him than this. As for his coevals, he himself says, very justly, '* It is
not commonly at that green age that our young gentry have a just sense
of the distance between them and their ragged pla3rfellow8. ify young
superiors," he proceeds, ** never insulted the doiUerh/ appearance of my
plough-boy carcass, the two extremes of which were often exposed to all
the inclemencies of all the seasons. They would give me stray volumes
of books : among them, even then, I could pick up some observation ; and
one, whose heart I am sure not even the Munny Begum scenes have tainted,
helped me to a little French. Parting with these, my young friends and
benefactors, as they occasionally went off for the East or West Indies, was of-
ten to me a sore aiHiction, — ^but I was soon called to more serious evils."^
(Letter to Moore). The condition of the family during the last two years
of their residence at Mount Qliphant, when the struggle which ended in
their removal was rapidly approaching its crisis, has been already describe
ed ; nor need we dwell again on the untimely burden of sorrow, as well as
toil, which fell to the share of the youthful poet, and which would have
broken altogether any mind wherein feelings like his had existed, without
strength like his to control theni. The removal of the family to Lochlea,
in the parish of Tarbolton, look place when Burns was in his sixteenth year.
He had some time before this made his first attempt in verse, and the occa-
sion is thus described by himself in his letter to Moore. '* This kind of life^-
the cheerless gloom of a hermit, with the unceasing moil of a galley-slave,
brought me to my sixteenth year ; a little before which period I first commit-
ted the sin of Rhyme. You kno;v our coimtry custom of coupling a man and
woman together as partners in the labours of harvest. In my hfleenth au-
tumn my partner was a bewitcliing creature, a year younger than myself.
My scarcity of Ilnglish denies me tho power of doing her justice in that
language ; but you know the Scottish idiom — she was a bonnie, sweet, sonde
lass. In short, she. altogether unwittingly to herself, initiated me in that
delicious passion, which, in spite cf acid disappointment, gin-horse pru-
dence, and book-worm philosophy, 1 hold to be the first of human joy8» our
dearest blessing here below ! How she caught the contagion, I cannot tell :
you medical people talk much of infection from breathing the same air, the
touch, &c. ; but I never expressly said I loved her. Indeed, I did not know
myself why I liked so much to loiter behind with her, when returning in
the evening from our labours ; why the tones of her voice made my heart-
strings thrill like an i^olian harp ; and particularly why my pulse beat such
a funous ratan, when 1 looked and fingered over her little hand, to pick out
the cruel nettle-stings and thistles. Among her other love-inspiring qua-
lities, she sung sweetly ; and it was her favourite reel, to which I attempted
giving an embodied vehicle in rhyme. I was not so presumptuous as to
imagine that I could make verses like printed ones, composed by men who
had Greek and Latin ; but my girl sung a song, which was said to be com-
posed by a small country laird's son, on one of his father's maids, with whom
be was in love ; and I saw no reason why I might not rhyme as well as he ;
for, excepting that he could smear sheep, and cast peats, his father living
in the moorlands, he had no more scholar-crafl than myself.
** Thus with me began love and poetry ; which at times have been my
only, and till within the last twelve monthsi have been my highest enjoy-
ment**
^ XIFX OP ROBERT BURNS.
Tk$ fftrUeftt of tke poet's productions is the little ballad,
^^ O once I laved a booaj has.
Burns himself characterises it as ''a very puerile and silly performance ;"*
yet it contains here and there lines of which he need hardly have been
aahamed at any period of his life : —
'^ She dresses aye sae clean and neat,
Baith decent and genteel.
And then there*ii something in her gait
Oars onj dress look weeL"
<< Silly and puerile as it is,** said the poet, long afterwards, ''I am al-
ways pleased with this song, as it recalls to my mind those happy days
when my heart was jret honest, and ray tongue sincere...! composed it in a
wild enUiusiasm of passion, and to this hour I never recollect it but my
liaart melts, my blood sallies, at the remembrance." (MS. Memorandum
book, August 1783.)
In his first epistle to Lapraik (1785) he says —
*^ Amaist as soon as I could speU,
I to the crambo-jingle fell,
Tho* rude and rough ;
Yet crooning to a body's sell
Does wcel eneugh."
And in some nobler verses, entitled << On my Early Days," we have the
ibllowing passage : —
** I mind it weel in early date.
When I was beardless, young and blate,
And first could thrash the bam,
Or haud a yokin* o* the pleugh,
An' tho' fbrfbughten sair eneugh,
Yet unco proud to learn —
AVhen first amang the yellow com
.' A man I reckoned was,
An' wi' the lave ilk merry mom
Could rank my rig and lass-
Still shearing and clearing
The tither stookit raw,
Wi' claivers and haivers
Wearing the day awa —
E'en then a wish, I mind its power,
A wish that to my latest hour
Shall strongly heave my breast :
That I for poor auld Scotland's i^ke.
Some useful plan or book could make.
Or sing a sang, at least :
The rough bur-tmstle spreading wide
Amang the bearded bear,
I tum'd the weeder-clips aside.
And spared the symbol dear/
>*
He is hardly to be envied who can contemplate without emotion, this
exquisite picture of young na'ture and young genius. It was amidst such
scenes that this extraordinary being felt those first indefinite stirrings of
immortal ambition, which he has himself shadowed out under the magnifi-
cent image of << the blind gropbgs of Homcr*s Cyclops, around the walls
of his cave.**
CHAPTER II.
CoVTijrrt— — .TVtMi 17 to Iti^-^ Robert and Gilbert Btons work to their Father, om Labourwrif
at atated Wage9-~At Rural Work the Poet feared no Competitor — Thi» period not narked
hjf wmA Mental Improvement— 'At JDaneing- School — Progress in Love and Poetry — AM
Sekaoi at Khrkonoalds — Bad Company^^At ZrvtM^^Flaxdressiny^^ Becomes there Mtm
Ur of a B^Btehdm* Onb.
^^ O enviable early days.
When dancing thoughtless pleasure's maze,
To care and piilt unknown !
How ill exchan^^ Tor riper times,
To feel the follies or the crimes
Of others— or my own !*'
As has been already mentioned, William Burnes now quitted Mount
Oliphant for Lochlea, in the parish of Tarbolton, where, for some little
vp%ce^ fortune appeared to smile on his industry and frugality. Robert
and Gilbert were employed by their father as regular labourers — he allow*
ing them £7 of wages each per annum ; from which sum, however, the
Yalue of any home*made clothes received by the youths was exactly de-
ducted. Robert Bums's person, inured to daily toil, and continually expos-
ed to every variety of weather, presented, before the usual time, every cha-
racteristic of robust and vigorous manhood. He says himself, that he never
feared a competitor in any species of rur^il exertion ; and Gilbert Bums,
m man of uncommon bodily strength, adds, that neither he, nor any labourer
he ever saw at work, was equal to the youthful poet, either in the com
field, or the severer tasks of the thrashing-floor. Gilbert says, that Ro-
bert's literary zeal slackened considerably aflcr their removal to Tarbolton.
He was separated from his acquaintances of the to^^n of Ayr, and proba-
bly missed not only the stimulus of their conversation, but the kindness
that had furnished him with his supply, such as it was, of books^ But the
main 'source of his change of habits about this period was, it is confessed
on all hands, the precocious fervour of one of his own turbulent passions.
" In my seventeenth year," says Bums, '* to give my manners a brush, I
went to a country dancing-school. — My father had an unaccountable anti-
pathy against these meetings ; and my going was, what to this moment I
repent, in opposition to his wishes. My father was subject to strong pas-
sions ; from that instance of disobedience in me, he took a sort of dislike
to roe, which I believe was one cause of the dissipation which marked raj
succeeding years. I say dissipation, comparatively with the strictness,
and sobriety, and regularity of Presbyterian country life ; for though the
Will-o'-Wisp meteors of thoughtless whim were almost the sole lights of
my path, yet early ingrained piety and virtue kept me for several years
afterwards within the line of innocence. I'he great misfortune of my life
was to want an aim. 1 saw my father s situation entailed on me perpetual
labour. The only two openings by which I could enter the temple oi For- .
4
W-
X LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS.
tune, were the gate of nigardly economy, or tlie path of little chicaning
bargain-making. The firjst is so contracted an aperture, 1 could never
squeeze myself into it ; — the last I always hated — there was contamination
in the very entrance ! ITius abandoned of aim or view in life, with a
strong appetite for sociability, as well from native hilarity, as from a pride
of observation and remark ; a constitutional melancholy or hypochondria-
cism that made me fly solitude ; add to these incentives to social life, my
reputation for bookish knowledge, a certain wild logical talent, and a
strength of thought, something like the rudiments of good sense ; and it
will not seem surprising that 1 was generally a welcome guest where I vi-
sited, or any great wonder that, always where two or three met together,
there was I among them. But Hir beyond all other impulses of my heart,
was uniyniclii tut pour CadorcAlc tfioifie du gairc hnmain, Sly heart was com-
pletely tinder, and was eternally lighted up by some goddess or other ;
and as in every other warfare in this world my fortune was various, some-
times I was received with favour, and sometimes I was mortified with a
repulse. At the plough, scythe, or reap-hook, I feared no competitor, and
thus I set absolute want at defiance ; and as I never cared farther for my
labours than while I was in actual exercise, I spent the evenings in the
way after my own heart. A country lad seldom carries on a love adven-
ture without an assisting confidant. I possessed a curiosity, zeal, aiid in-
trepid dexterity, that recommended me as a proper second on these occa-
sions, and I dare say^ I felt as much pleasure in being in the secret of
half the loves of the parish of Tarbolton, as ever did statesman in knowing
the intrigues of half the courts of Europe."
In regard to the same critical period of Burns's life, his excellent brother
writes as follows : — ** I vronder how Robert could attribute to our father that
lasting resentment of his going to a dancing-school against his will, of which
he was incapable. I believe tlie truth was, that about this time he began
to see the dangerous impetuosity of my brother's passions, as well as his
not being amenable to counsel, which often irritated my father, and which
he would naturally think a dancin[;- school was not likely to correct. But
he was proud of Robert's genius, which he bestowed more expense on
cultivating than on the rest of the family — and he was equally delighted
with his warmth of heart, and conversational powers. He had indeed that
dislike of dancing-schools which Robert mentions ; but so far overcame it
during Robert's first month of attendance, that he permitted the rest of
the family that were fit for it, to accompany him during the second month.
Jlobert excelled in dancing, and was for some time distractedly fond of it.
And thus the seven years we lived in Tarbolton parish (extending from the
seventeenth to tlic twenty-fourth of my brother's age) were not marked by
much literary improvement ; but, during this time, the foundation was laid
of certain h2d)its in my brother's character, which afterwards became but
too prominent, and which malice and envy have taken delight to enlarge
on. Though, when young, he was bashful and awkward in his intercourse
with women, yet when he approached manhood, his attachment to their
society became very strong, and he was constantly the victim of some
fiur enslaver. The symptoms of his passion were often such as nearly to
equal those of the celebrated Sappho. I never indeed knew that he
fainted^ sunk, and died aioay ; but the agitations of his mind and body
exceeded any thing of tlie kind I ever knew in real life. He had always a
particular jealousy of people who were richer than himself; or who had
LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. xi
more consequence in life. His love, therefore, rarely settled on persons
bf this description. When he selected any one out of the sovereignty of
his good pleasure to whom he should pay his particular attention, ^e was
instantly invested with a sufficient stock of charms, out of the plentiful
•tores of his own imagination ; and there was oflen a great dissimilitude
between his fair captivator, as she appeared to others, and as she seemed
when invested with the attributes he gave her. ' One generally reigned
paramount in his affections ; but as Yorlck's affections flowed out toward
Madame de L at the reraise door, while the eternal vows of Eliza were
upon him, so Robert was frequently encountering other attractions, which
formed so many under-plots in the drama of his love."
Tlius occupied with labour, love, and dancing, the youth " witliout an
aim*' found leisure occasionally to clothe the sufficiently various moods of
his mind in rhymes. It was as early as seventeen, (he tells us),* tliat he
wrote some stanzas which begin bcautifidly :
" I drcamM I lay where flowers were springing
Gailv in the' sunny beana ;
Listening to (he vnld birds singing,
By a fallen crystal stream.
Straight the sky srcvr black and daring,
Thro* the wtjoos the whirlwinds rave,
. Trees with aged arms were warring,
O'er the swelling drnmlic wave.
Such was life's d»<.citl"ul morning,** &c.
On comparing these verses with those on " Handsome Nell," tlie ad* '
▼ance achieved by the young bard in the course of two short years, must
be regarded with admiration ; nor should a minor circumstance be entirely
overlooked, that in the piece which we have just been quoting, there occurs
but one Scotch word. It was about this time, also, that he wrote a ballad of
much less ambitious vein, whicli, years after, he says, he used to con over
with delight, because of the faithfulness with which it recalled to him the
circumstances and feelings of his opening manhood.
— " My father was a farmer upon the Carrick Border,
And carefully he brought me up in decency and order.
And bade mc act a manly part, tho* 1 had ne'er a farthing ;
For without an honest manly heart, no mun was worth regarding.
Then out into tlie world my course I did determine ;
TAo' to he rich xcas not my trix/t, yd to hr great wot charming /
My talents tlicy were not llie zront^ nor yet my education ;
Resolved was 1 at least to try to mend my situation.
No help, nor hope, nor view had I, nor person to befriend me ;
So I must toil, and sweat, and broil, and labour to sustain me.
To plough and sow, to reap and mow, my father bred me earlv ;
For one, he said, to labour bred, was a match for fortune fainy.
Thus all obscure, unknown and poor, thro* life Fm doomed to wander ;
Til] down my weary bones 1 lay, in everbsting slumber.
No view, nor care, but shun whate'er might breed me pain or torxow ;
1 live to-day, as wdTs I may, regardless of to-morrow, &c
These are the only two of his very early productions in which we have
nothing expressly about love. The rest were composed to celebrate the
cfaArms of those rural beauties'who followed each other in the dominion of
• Rdiques^p. 242.
ftU LIP£ OF ROBERT BURNS
titi fiuicy-— or shared the capricious throne between them ; and we mar
euOy helmwef that one who possessed, with his other qualifications, suck
flowers of flattering, feared competitors as little in the diversions of his
evenings as in the toils of his day.
The rural lover, in those districts, pursues his tender vocation in a stjle^
the especial fascination of which town-bred swains may find it some*
what difficult to comprehend. Afler the labours of the day are over, nart
▼ery often after he is supposed by the inmates of his own fireside to be in
Ills bed, the happy youth tliinks little of walking many long Scotch miles
to the residence of his mistress, who, upon the signal of a tap at her win*
dow,« comes forth to spend a soft hour or two beneath the harvest moon,
or, if the weather be severe, (a circumstance which never prevents the
journey from being accomplished), amidst the sheaves of her father's banu
This ** chappin' out,** as they call it, is a custom of which parents com-
monly wink at, if they do not openly approve, the observance ; and the
consequences are far, very far, more frequently quite harmless, than per-
sons not familiar with the peculiar manners and feelings of our peasantry
may find it easy to believe. Excursions of this class form the theme of
almost^l the songs which Bums is known to have produced about this pe-
riod,—and such of these juvenile |>erformance8 as have been preserved,
are, without exception, beautiful. They show how powerfully his bojrish
fancy had been affected by the old rural minstrelsy of his own country,
and how easily his native taste caught the secret of its charm. The truth
and simplicity of nature breathe in every line — the images are always just,
often originally happy — and the growing refinement of* his ear and judg^
ment, may be tracecf in tlie terser language and more mellow flow of eadi
•ttccessive ballad.
The best of the songs written at this time is that begumingr-*
*' It was upon a liominaR night.
When com rigs are bonnie.
Beneath the inoon*s unclouded light,
I held awa to Annie.
The time flew by wi* tentless heed,
Till, 'tween tne late and early,
AVi* sma* pcnuiaston she agreed
To tee me thro* Uie barley.**
We may let tlie poet carry on his own story. *' A circumstance,*' says
he, *' which made some alteration on my mind and manners, was, that I
spent my nineteenth summer on a smuggling coast, a good distance from
liome, at a noted school (Kirkoswald*s) to learn mensuration, surveying,
dialling, &c^ in which I made a good progress. But I made a greater pro«
gress in the knowledge of mankind. The contraband triEide was at that
time very successful, and it somethnes happened to me to fiill in with those
who carried it on. Scenes of swaggering riot and roaring dissipation were
till this time new to nic ; but 1 was no enemy to social life. Here, though
I leamt to fill my glass, and to mix without fear in a drunken squabble, yet
I went on with a high hand with my geometry, till the sun entered Virgo,
m month which is always a carnival in my bosom, when a charming fildU^
who lived next door to the school, overset my trigonometry, and set me
off at m tangent from the sphere of my studies. I, however, struggled on
with my 'UM' and cfhmnes for a few days more ; but stepping into the gar«
den one charming noon to take the sun's altitude, there I met my angelp
h'ke ■
LIFE OF RO&£at BURMA. xiU
^^ Pronerpint, jMheibff flowers,
Hendf a fiSrtr flSver.**
*< It was in vain to think of doing any more good at schooL The remain-
ing week I staidf I did nothing but craze the faculties of my soul about
her, or steal out to meet her ; and the two last nights of my stay in the
country^ had sleep been a mortal sin, the image of this modest and iono-
cent giri had kept me guiltless. I returned home very considerably improvecL
My reading wai enlarged with the very important addition of Thomaon*!
and Shtmatone's Works ; I had seen human nature in a new phasis ; and I
engaged several of my school-fellows to keep up a literary correspondence
with me. This improved me in composition. I had met with a collection
of letters by the wits of Queen Anne's reign, and I pored over them most
devoutly ; I kept copies of any of my own letters that pleased me ; and a
comparison between them and the composition of most of my correqxMi'*
dents flattered my vanity. I carried this whim so far, that though I had '
not three &rthings worth of business in the world, yet almost every post
brought ne ai numy letters as if I had been a broad plodding son of day-
book and ledger. My life flowed on much in the same course till my
twenty-third year. Vive famour, ei vive la hagaidUy were my sole princi-
ples oi' action. The addition oi* two more authors to my library gave me
great pleasure; Sterne and Mackenzie — TrUtrtun Shaidy usnA The Man
of Ftiimg ■— were my bosom favourites. Poesy was still a darling walk for
my mind ; but it was only indulged in according to the humour of the hour.
I had usually half a dozen or more pieces on hand ; I took up one or other,
as it suited the momentary tone of the mind, and dismissed the work aa
it bordered on fatigue. My passions, once lighted up, raged like so many
devils, till they found vent in rhyme ; and then the conning over my veraes,
like a spell, soothed all into quiet."
Of the rhymes of those days, few, when he wrote hb letter to Moore, had
appeared in print. JVinfer, a dirge, an admirab|y versified piece, is of their
number ; The Death of Poor MaiUe, Mailie*s Elegy , and John BarkyeonC;
and one charming song, inspired by the Nymph of Kirkoswald*f| whose at-
tractions put an end to his trigonometry.
*^ Now wcidin winds, and slaughtering guns,
Briag'Autumn^s pleasant weadier ;
The mooicock spring on whtrring win^
Amang the bkKxning lieathcr. . . •
— PegsT dear, the evening's dear,
Thidc flics the shimmin|[ swallow ;
The skjr b bine, the fidUb in view.
All iading green and yellow ;
Come let us stray our gladsome way,** Ilc.
John Sarl^eom is a clever old ballad, very cteverlv new-modeOtd and
extended; but the Death and Elegy of Poor MaHe deserve more atte»«
tion. The expiring animal's admonitions touching the education c€ the
*< poor toop lamb, her son and heir," and the '' yowie, silly thing/* her
daughter, are from the same peculiar vein of sly homely wit, embedded
upon fimcy, which he afterwards dug with a bolder hand m the Twa Dogs^
and perhaps to its utmost depth, in his Death and Doctor Hornbook. It
need acarcelybe added, that Poor Mailie was a real personage, though she
did not actually die until some time after her last words were written. She
had bwn pur^aK^by Buma id a fro)iC| and b^ame exceedingly attacbe4
tobifpcrMit
jif Lll« OF ROBERT BTTRNl
^ Tlno* an the town ihe trotted by him •
A lan^ half-mfle she could descry him ;
Wi* kindly bleat, when she did vpr him,
She ran wi* speea:
A friend miir faithfu* ne>r came nigh him,
llian Mailie dead.^
These little pieces arc in a much broader dialect than any of their pre**
decei^ors. His merriment and satire were, from the beginning, Scotch.
Notwithstanding the luxurious tone of some of Bums*s pieces produced in
those times, we are assured by himself (and his brother unhesitatingly con-
firms the statement) that no positive vice mingled in any of his loves, until
after he had reached his twenty- third year. He has already told us, that
his short residence *' away from home" at Kirkoswald*s, where he mixed
in the society of seafaring men and smugglers, produced an unfavourable
alteration on some of his habits ; but in 1781-2 he spent six months at
Irvine ; and it is from this period that Iiis brother dates a serious change.
" As his numerous connexions," says Gilbert, " were governed by the
strictest rules of virtue and modesty, (from which he never deviated till
his twenty-third year), he became anxious to be in a situation to marry.
This was not likely to be the case while he remained a farmer, as the stock-
ing of a farm required a sum of money he saw no probability of being mas-
ter of for a great \vhile. . He and I had for several years taken land of our
father, for the purpose of raising flax on our own account ; and in tJie
course of selling it, Robert began to think of turning flax-dresser, both as
being suitable to his grand view of settling in life, and as subservient to
the flax-raising." Burns, accordingly, went to a half-brother of his mo-
ther's, by name Peacock, a flax-dresser in Irvine, M'ith the view of learn-
ing this new trade, and for some time he applied hirpself diligently ; but
misfortune after misfortune attended him. The shop accidentally caught
fire during the carousal of a new-year \s-day*s morning, and Robert ** was
left, like a true poet, not worth a sixpence." — *' 1 was obliged," says he,
** to give up this scheme ; the clouds of misfortune were gathering thick
round my father's head ; and what was worst of all, he was visibly far gone
in a consumption ; and, to crown my distresses, a belle Jille whom I adored,
and who had pledged her soul to meet me in the field of matrimony, jilted
me, with peculiar circumstances of mortification. The finishing evil that
brought up the rear of this infernal file, was, my constitutional melancholy
being increased to such a degree, that for three months 1 was in a state
of mind scarcely to be envied by the hopeless wretches who have got
their mittimus — Depart from me, ye cursed^ The following letter, addressed
by Bums to his father, three days before the unfortimate fire took place,
will show abundantly Uiat the gloom of his spirits had little need of that
aggravation. When we consider by whom, to whom, and under what cir-
cumstanceSy it was written, the letter is every way a remarkable one : — ^
<< Honoured Sir,
** I HAVE purposely delayed writing, in the hope tliat I should have
the pleasure of seeing you on New-year*s day ; but work comes so hard
iq[xm us, that I do not choose to be ai>sent on that account, as well as for
aome other little reasons, which I shall tell you at meeting. My health is
nearly the same as when you were here, only my sleep is a little sounder;
and, on the whole, I am rather better than otherwise, though I mend by
Tery alow degrees. The -weakness of my nerves has so diebilitated my
LIFS OF ROBERT BURNS. kv
tBindf tliat 1 dare neither review past wants> nor look forward bto futurity ;
for the least anxiety or perturbation in my breast produces most unhappy
elects on my whole frame. Sometimes, indeed, when for an hour or two
my spirits are alighteued, I glimmer a little into futurity ; but my principal,
and indeed my only pleasurable employment, is looking backwards and for-
wards in a moral and religious way. I am quite transported at the thought,
thiit ere long, perhaps very soon, I shall bid an eternal adieu to all the
pains and uneasiness, and disquietudes of this weary life ; for I assure you
I am heartily tired of it ; and, if I do not very much deceive myself, I
could contentedly and gladly resign it.
^ The soul, uneasy, mnd confined at home.
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.*
** It is for this reason I am more pleased with the 15th, 16th, and 17th
Terses of the'7th chapter of Revelations, than with any ten times as many
Terses in the whole Bible, and would not exchange the noble enthusiasm
with whidi they inspire me for all that this world has to offer. As for this
world, I despair of ever making a figure in it. I am not formed for the
bustle of the busy, nor the flutter of the gay. 1 shall never again be cap*
aUe of entering into such scenes. Indeed, 1 am altogether unconcerned
at the thoughts of this life. I foresee that poverty and obscurity probably
await me, and I am in some measure prepared, and daily preparing, to meet
them. I have but just time and paper to return you my grateful thanks
for the lessons of virtue and piety you have given me, which were too much
neglected at the time of giving them, but which I hope have been remem-
hmd ere it is yet too late. Present my dutiful respects to my mother,
and my compliments to Mr. and Mrs. Muir; and, with wishing you a
merry New-year's-day, I shall conclude.
* << 1 am, honoured Sir, your dutiful son,
" Robert Burks/'
P. S. — My meal is nearly out ; but I am going to borrow, till I get
more.''
The verses of Scripture here alluded to, are as follows i-^
*^ 15. Therefore are they befofc the throne of God, and serve him da/ and night in hit tenu
]))e; and he that sitteth on the tlironc shall dwell among them.
** IS. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more ; neither shall the sun lis;ht on
tlicm, nor any heat.
*^ 17. For tlie Lamb that U in the midvt of the throne shall feed them, and shall lend them
vato Irving fountains of waters ; and Gud shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.'*
** This letter," says Dr. Currie, " \\Tittcn several years before the publi-
cation of his Poems, when his name was as obscure as his condition was
humble, displays the pliilosophic melancholy which so generally forms the
poetical temperament, and that buoyant and ambitious spirit which indi*
a mind conscious of its strength. At Irvine, Bums at this time pos-
a single room for his lodgings, rented, perhaps, at tlie rate of a shil-
Siig a-week. He passed his days in constant labour as a flax-dresser, and
his food consisted chiefly of oat-nieal, sent to him from his father's family.
The store of this humble, though wholesome nutriment, it appears, was
neariy exhausted, and he was about to borrow till he should obtain a sup-
ply. Yet even in this situation, his active imagination had formed to itself
pictures of eminence and distinction. His despair of making a figure in
«ri Lin OP ftOSBRT fiORM&
the world, ihavri how ardently he wished for honourable finne ; and hit
eontempt of life, founded on this despair, is the genuine expreanon of a
jroathfu) and generous mind. In such a state of reflection, and €i stiimng,
the imagination of Bums naturally passed the dark boundaries of our earthhr
horizon, and rested on those beautiful representations of a better worid,
where there is neither thirst, nor hunger, nor sorrow, and where happiness
shall be in jproportion to the capacity of happiness.**— -Zijf%^ p. 102.
Unhaf^ily for himself and for the world, it was not always In the recol-
lections of his virtuous home and the study of his Bible, that Bums sot^it
.for consolation amidst the heavy distresses which " his youth was heir to."
Irvine is a small sea-port ; and here, as at Kirkoswald's, the adventurous
spirits of a smuggling coast, with all their jovial habits, were to be met
with in abundance. <' He contracted some acquaintance," says Gilbert,
^ of a freer manner of thinking and living than he had been used to, whose
•ociety prepared him for overleaping the bounds of rigid virtue, which had
lulhcrto restrained him."
One of the nndst intimate companions of Boms, while he remained at
Irvine, seems to have been David Sillar, to whom the Epidk i» D&^
M^ a BroAer Poet, was subsequently addressed. Sillar was at this time a
poor schoolmaster in Irvine, enjoying considerable reputation as a writer
cf local verses : and, according to all accounts, extremely jovial in his 1^
and conversation.
Bums himself tlms sums up tlie results of his residence at Irvine ^-*
^ From this adventure I learned somethi|ng of a town life ; but the princi-
pal thing which gave my mind a turn, was a friendship I formed with a
young fellow, a very noble character, but a hapless son of misfortune. He
was file son €^ a simple mechanic ; but a great man in the neighbourhood,
taking him under his patronage, gave him a genteel education, with a view
of bettering his situation in life. The patron dying just as he was ready to
launch out into the world, the poor fellow in despair went to sea; where,
after a variety of good and ill fortune, a little before I was acquainted with
turn, he had been set ashore by an American privateer, on the wild coast of
Connaught, stripped of every thing His mind was fraught with
independence, magnanimity, and every manly virtue. I loved and admir-
ed him to a degree of enthusiasm, and of course strove to imitate him. In
aome measure I succeeded ; ( had pride before, but he taught it to flow in
proper channels. His knowledge of the world was vastly superior to mine ;
and I w2ls all attention to learn. He was the only man 1 ever saw who was
a greater fool than myself, where women was the presiding star ; but he
spoke of illicit love with the levity of a sailor — which hitherto I had regard-
ed with horror. Here hut fricndihip did me a mischief," Professor Walker,
when preparing to write his Sketch of the Poet's life, was informed by an
aged inhabitant of Irvine, that Bums's chief delight while there was in dis-
cossing religious topics, particularly in those circles which usually gather
in a Scotch churchyard aflcr service. The senior added, that Bums com-
monly took the high Calvinistic side in such debates; and concluded with
a boast, that *' tlie lad'* was indebted to himself in u great measure for
the gradual adoption of *' more liberal opinions." It was during the aame
period* that the }>oet was first initiated in the mysteries of free masonry,
*^ which was,*' says his brother, *' his first introduction to the life of abooQ
companion." He was introduced to St. Mary's Lodge of Tarfoolton by
UFB Of ROBERT BURNS.
John Banken, a very dissipated man of considerable talents, lo whom he
tftenrards indited a poetiod epistle, which will be noticed in its place.
*^ Rhyme,** Bums says, << I had givea up ;'* (ongoing to Irvine) << but
meeting with Ferguson's Scottish Poetng^ I strung anew my wildly sound-
log lyre with emulating vigour." Neither flax-dressing nor the -tavern
could keep him long from his proper vocation. But it was probably this
accidental meeting with Ferguson, tliat in a great measure finally deter-
mined the Scottish character of Bums's poetry ; and indeed, but for the
lasting sense of this obligation, and some natural sympathy with the personal
misfortunes of Ferguson's life, it would be difficult to account for the very
hi^ terms in which Bums always mentions his productions.
Shortly before Bums went to Irvine, he, his brother Gilbert, and some
seven or eight young men besides, all of the parish of Tarbolton, had form-
ed themselves into a society, which they called the Bachelor's Club ; and
which met one evening in every month for the purposes of mutual enter-
tainment and improvement. That their cups were but modestly filled is
evident ; for the rules of the ^lub did not permit any member to spend
more than threepence at a sitting. A question was announced for dis-
cussion at the dose of each meeting ; and at the next they came prepared
to deliver their sentiments upon the subject-matter thus proposed. Bums
drew up the regulations, and evidently was the principal person. He in-
troduced his friend Sillar during his stay at Irvine, and the meetings ap-
pear to have continued as long as the family remained in Tarbolton. Of
the sort of questions discussed, we may form some notion from the minute
of one evening, still extant in Bums's hand-writing. — Question foe Hal-
LOWEBN, (Nov. 11), 1780.—" Suppose a young man^ bred a farmer^ hui
uriihoui anyfoTtum^ lias it in his power to marry either of two wotneu, tJie ons
a ^tf7 4^ large fortune, but neither handsome in penoti, nor agreeable in con*
vermUion^ but who can manage tJte Jumsehold affairs of a farm locU enough ;
tke other ffOian a girl every way agreeable in person, conversation, aiui behavi^
OMTf but without any fortune : which of thetn shall he cltoose 9" Bums, as
may be guessed, took the imprudent side in this discussion.
** On one solitary occasion," says he, " we resolved to meet at Tarbol-
ton in July, on the race-night, and have a dance in honour of our society.
Accordingly^ we did meet, each one with a partner, and spent the evening
in such innocence and merriment, such cheerfulness and good humour, that
every brother will long remember it with delight." There can be no doubt
that Bums would not have patronized this sober association so long, unless
he had experienced at its assemblies tlie pleasure of a stimulated mind ;
and as litue, that to die habit of arranging his tlioughts, and expressing
them in somewhat of a formal shape, thus early cultivated, we ought to at-
tribute much of that conversational skill which, when he first mingled witli
the upper world, was generally considered as the most remarkable o^ all his
persoiud accomplishments. — Bums's associates of the Bachelors Club,
must have been young men possessed of talents and acquirements, other-
wise such minds as his and Gilbert's could not have persisted in measuring
themselves against theirs ; and we may believe that the periodical display
of the poet's own vigour and resources, at these club-meetings, and (more
frequently than his brother approved) at the Free Mason Lodges of Inrine
and Tarbolton, extended his rural reputation ; and, by degrees, prepared
pfffUff^ not immediately included in his own circle, for the extraordinary
iiiHii I MJnn which his poetical efforts were ere long to create all over ** thf
CvTickborder,*' ^
iviii LttE OF ROfiliRT BDR^S.
David Sillar gives an account of the beginning of his &ith ^quainttnetf
with Burns, and introduction into this Bachelor's Club, which will ahrayi be
read with much interest — " Mr. Robert Bums was some time in the parish
of Tarbolton prior to my acquaintance with him. His social disposition
easily procured him acquaintance ; but a certain satirical seasoning with
which he and all poetical geniuses are in some degree influenced, while it
set the rustic circle in a roar, was not unaccompanied with its kindred at-
tendant, suspicious fear. I recollect hearing his neighbours observe, he had
a great deal to say for himself, and that they suspected his principles. He
wore the only tied hair in the parish ; and in the church, his plaid, whidi
was of a particular colour, I think fillemot, he wrapped in a particular
manner round his shoulders. These surmises, and his exterior, had such
a raagnetical influence on my curiosity, as made me particularly solicitoua
of his acquaintance. Whether my acquaintance with Gilbert was casual
or premeditated, I am not now certain. By him I was introduced, not
only to his brother, but to the whole of that family, where, in a short time,
I became a frequent, and I believe, not unwelcome visitant. Afier the
commencement of my acquaintance with the bard, we frequently met
upon Sundays at church, when, between sermons, instead of going with
our friends or lasses to the inn, we often took a walk in the fields. In these
walks, I have frequently been struck with his facility in addressing the fiur
sex ; and many times, when I have been bashfully anxious how to express
myself^ he would have entered into conversation with them with the great-
est ease and freedom ; and it was generally, a death*blow to our conversa-
tion, however agreeable, to meet a female acquaintance. Some of the few
opportunities of a noontide walk that a country life allows her laborious
sons, he spent on the banks of the river, or in the woods, in the neigh*
bourhood of Stair, a situation peculiarly adapted to the genius of a rural
bard. Some book (generally one of those mentioned in his letter to Mr.
Murdoch) he always carried and read, when not otherwise employed. It
was likewise his custom to read at table. In one of my visits to Lochlea,
in time of a sowen supper, he was so intent on reading, I think Tristram
Shandy, that his spoon falling out of his hand, made him exclaim, in a
tone scarcely imitable, * Alas, poor Yorick !* Such was Bums, and such
were his associates, when, in May 1781, I was admitted a member of
tlie Bachelor's Club.**
The misfortunes of William Burnes thickened apace, as has already been
seen, and were approaching their crisis at the time when Robert came
home from his flax- dressing experiment at Irvine. The good old man
died soon afler ; and among other evils which he thus escaped, was an af-
fliction that would, in his eyes, have been severe. The poet had not, as
he confesses, come unscathed out of the society of those persons of ** li-
beral opinions" with whom he consorted in Irvine ; and he expressly
attributes to their lessons, the scrape into which he fell soon after ** he
put hb hand to plough again.'* He was compelled, according to the then
all but universal custom of rural parishes in Scotland, to do penance in
church, before the congregation, in consequence of the birth of an illegi-
timate child ; and whatever may be thought of the propriety of such ex-
hibitions, there can be no difference of opinion as to the culpable levity
with which he describes the nature of his offence, and the still more re-
prehensible bitterness with which, in his Epistle to Ranken, he inveighs
Itgainst the clergyman, who, in rebuking him, only performed what was
LIFE Ot ftO&Ellt BURNS. xin
then a regular part of the clerical duty, and a part of it that could never
have been at all agreeable to the worthy man whom he satirizes under
the appellation of <' Daddie Auld." The Poet's Welcome to an lUegiOmaie
Child was composed on the same occasion — a piece in which some very
manly feelings are expressed, along with others which can give no one
pleasure to contemplate. There is a song in honour of the same occasion,
or a similar one about the same period. The rantin' Dog the Daddie o'^-^
which exhibits the poet as glorying, and only glorying in his shame.
When I consider his tender affection for tlie surviving members of his
own family, and the reverence with which he ever regarded the memory of
the &ther whom he had so recently buried, I cannot believe that Bums has
thought fit to record in verse all the feelings which this exposure excited
in his bosom. ** To wave (in his own language) the quantum of the sin,*'
he who, two years aflerwards, wrote The Cottars Saturday Night, had not,
we may be sure, hardened his heart to the thought of bringing additional
sorrow and unexpected shame to the fireside of a widowed mother. But
his fidse pride recoiled from letting his jovial associates guess how little he
was aUe to drown the whispers of the skU smcdl voice ; and the fermenting
iMttemess of a mind ill at ease within itself, escaped (as may be too oflen
traced in the history of satirists) in the shape of angry, sarcasms against
others, who, whatever their private errors might be, had at least done him
Bo wrong.
It is impossible not to smile at one item of consolation which Bums pro-
poses to himself on this occasion : — *
«« .—^ The nuur thej tilk, Fm kend the better t
£*en let them clash r
This it indeed a singular manifestation of « the last Infirmity of noble
tninds."
CHAPTER m.
CoxTZKTt. — Tht Sroihen, Robert and Gilbert^ htwnu ienanis of MottpJU^TMr imeutaai
labour and moderate habits — The farm cold and unfertile-^Nvi pro§perou9-^»Th§ MuM
anti'odvinistical — The port thence involved deeply in local polemiee, and ckitrpmi with he»
regy — Curiovg aceouut <f these disfmtes — Early poems prompted by them — Origin of and
remarhs npon the poeCs principal pieces — Love leads him far astray-^ A crisU^-^ The jail at
the West Indies^ The altemaiive.
t ** The star that rules my lucklen loC
Has fated mc the russet coat.
And damoM my fortune to the f^toaX ;
But in reauit,
Has blessM me wi* a random snot
C country wit.**
Three months before the death of William Bumes, Robert ind Gilbert
took the farm of M ossglel, in the neighbouring parish of Mauchline, with
the view of providing a shelter for their parents, in the storm which they
had seen gradually thickening, and knew must soon burst ; and to this
place the whole family removed on William's death. Tlie farm- consisted
of 119 acres, and the rent was £90. " It was stocked by the property,
and individual savings of the whole family, (says Gilbert), and was a joint
concern among us. Every member of the family was allowed ordinary
wages for the labour he performed on the farm. My brother's allowance
and mine was £7 per annum each ; and during the whole time this family
concern lasted, which was four years, as well as during the preceding pe-
riod at Lochlea, Robert's expenses never, in any one year, exceeded his
slender income."
" I entered on this farm," says tlie poet, " with a full resolution, come^
goy I will be teise^ I read farming books, I calculated crops, I attended
markets ; and, in short, in spite of the devif, and tfie world, and the /leshf
I believe I should have been a wise man ; but the first year, from unfor-
tunately buying bad seed, the second, from a late harvest, we lost half
our crops. This overset all my wisdom, and I returned, like the dog to hU
vomit, and the sow ih<tt was washed to her wallowing in the mire.'*
" At the time that o«r poet took the resolution of becoming wise, he
procured," says Gilbert, " a little book of blank paper, with the purpose,
expressed on the first page, of making farming memorandums. These
farming menwrandujns are curious enough," Gilbert slyly adds, " and a
specimen may gratify the reader."— Specimens accordingly he gives ; as.
" O whv tlie deuce should I repine,
Ana be an ill foreboder ?
Vm twenty-three, and five foot nine,-i«
i*U go and be a soil^i** &c«
LIFE OF ROBERT BURKS* is!
^^ O kave norellt, ye Mauchline beUet,
Ye*i« safer at your fpiiinixig wheel ;
Such witching books are baited hooks
For rakish rooks—like Rob MossgieL
Your fine Tom Jodmbs and Orandisons,
Thev make your youthiiil fancies reel^
They neat your veins, and fire your brains.
And then yc*re prey for Rob AlosKgiel,** Sic &c.
Tlie four years during which Bums resided on this cold and ungrateful
fium of Mossgiely were the most important of his life. It was then that
hk genius developed its highest energies ; on the works produced in these
years his fame was first established, and must eyer continue mainly to rest:
It was then also that his personal character came out in all its brightest lights,
and in all but its darkest shadows ; and indeed from tlie commencement
of this period, the history of the man may be traced, step by step, in his
own immortal writings. Burns now began to know that nature had meant
him for a poet ; and diligently, though as yet in secret, he laboured in
what he felt to be his destined vocation. Gilbert continued for some time
to be his chief, oflen indeed his only confidant ; and any thing more inte-
resting and delightful than this excellent man's account of the manner in
which the poems included in tlie first of his brotIier*s publications were
composed, is certainly not to be found in the annals of literary history.
The reader has already seen, that long before the earliest of them was
known beyond the domestic circle, the strength of Burns*s understanding,
and the keenness of his wit, as displayed in his ordinary conversation, and
more particularly at masonic meetings and debating clubs, (of which he
^Nrmed one in Mauchline, on the Tarbolton model, immediately on his re-
moval to Mossgiel), had made his name known to some considerable extent
in the country about Tarbolton, Mauchline, and Irvine ; and this prepared
the way for his poetry. Professor Walker gives an anecdote on this head;
which must not be omitted. Burns already numbered several clergymen
among his acquaintances. One of these gentlemen told the Professor, that
after entering on the clerical profession, he had repeatedly met Burns in
company, •* where," said he, " the acuteness and originality displayed by
him, the depth of his discernment, the force of his expressions, and the
authoritative energy 'of his understanding, had created a sense of his
power, of the extent of which I was unconscious, till it was revealed to
me by accident On the occasion of my second appearance in the pulpit^
I came with an assured and tranquil mind, and though a few persons of
education were present, advanced some length in the service with my con-
fidence and self-possession unimpaired ; but when I saw Bums, who was
of a different parish, unexpectedly enter the church, I was affected with
a tremor and embarrassment, which suddenly apprised me of the impression
which my mind, unknown to itself, had previously received." The Pro-
fessor adds» that the person who had thus unconsciously been measuring
Jie stature of the intellectual giant, was not only a man of good talents
and education, but ** remarkable for a more than ordinary portion of con •
stitutional firmness."
Every Scotch peasant who makes any pretension to understanding, is a
theological critic — and Burns, no doubt, had long ere this time distinguish-
ed himself considerably among those hard-headed groups that may usually
be seen gathered together in the church-yard afler the sermon is over. It
KUijbe guessed tha| from tlie time of his residence at Irvine, his stric-
xxii I'lFB OF ROB£RT BURNS.
turcs were too often delivered in no reverend vein. ^' Polemical divinity/
8ays he to Dr. Moore, in 1787, ** about this time, was putting the coun-
try halfmad, and I, ambitious of shining in conversation -[larties on Sun-
days, at funerals, &x., used to puzzle Calvinism with so much heat and in*
discretion, that I raised a hue-and-cry of heresy against me, which has not
ceased to tliis hour.**
To understand Burns's situation at this time, at once patronized by a
number of clerg3rmen, and attended with *< a hue-and-cry of licrcsvy" w^
must remember his own words, ^ that (wlemical divinity was putting tlic
country half mad.** Of both the two parties which, ever since the revolu-
tjon of 1G88, have pretty equally divided the Church of Scotland, it so
happened that some of the most zealous and conspicuous leaders and par-
tizons were thus opposed to each other, in constant warfare, in this porti-
cular district ; and their feuds being of course taken up among their con-
gregations, and spleen and prejudice at work, even more furiously in the
cottage than in tite manse, he who, to the annoyance of the one sot of belli-
gerents, could talk like Burns, might count pretty surely, with whatever
alloy his wit happened to be mingled, on the applause and countenance of
the enemy. And it is needless to add, they were the less scrupulous sect
of tlie two that enjoyed the co-operation, such as it was then, and far more
important, as in the sequel it came to be, of our poet.
William Burnes, as we have already seen, though a most exemplary and
devout man, entertained opinions very dLfFerent from those which common-
ly obtained among the rigid Calvanists of his district. The worthy and
pious old man himself, therefore, had not improbably infused into his son's
mind its first prejudice against these )x*rsons. The jovial spirits with whom
Burns associated at Irvine, and afterwards, were of course habitual dcriders
of the manners, as well as the tenets of the
*' Orthodox, orthodox, wha believe in John Knox.**
We have already observed the effect of the young poet's own first collision,
with the ruling powers of presbyterian discipline ; but it was in the very
act of settling at Mossgiel that Burns formed the connexion, which, more
than any circumstance besides, influenced him as to tlie matter now in
Sucstion. Tlie farm belonged to the estate of the Earl of Loudoun, but
ie brothers held it on d sub-lease from Mr. Gavin Hamilton, writer (t. e.
attorney) in Mauchline, a man, by every account, of engaging roahners,
open, kind, generous, and high-spirited, between whom and Robert Bums,
a close and intimate friendship was ere long formed. Just about this time
it happened that Hamilton was at open feud with Mr. Auld, the minister
of Mauchline, (the same who had already rebuked the poet), and the ruling
ciders of the parish, in consequence of certain irregularities in his personal
conduct and deportment, which, according to the usual strict notions ot
kirk discipline, were considered as fairly demanding the vigorous interfer-
ence of these authorities. Tlie notice of this person, his own landlord, and,
as it would seem, one of the principal inhabitants of the village of Maudn
line at the time, must, of course, have been very flattering to our polemical
young farmer. He espoused Gavin Haniilton*s quarrel wannly. Hamilton
was naturally enough disposed to nii\ up his personal affair with the stand-
ing controversies whereon Auld was at variance with a large and powerful
body of his brother clergymen ; and by degrees Mr. Hamilton's ardent/^m-
Ic^cf came to be as vchcnKntly interested in the church [lolitics of Ayrshire»
LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. xxiii
as he could have been in politics of another order, had he happened to be
a freeman of some open borough, and his patron a candidate for the honour
of representing it in St Stephen's^ Mr. Cromek has been severely criti-
cised for some details of Mr. Gavin Hamilton's dissensions with his parish
minister ; but perhaps it might have been well to limit the censure to the
tone and spirit of the narrative, since there is no doubt that these petty
squabUes had a large share in directing the early energies of Bums*s po-
etical talents. Even in the west of Scotland, such matters would hardly
excite much notice now-a-days, but they were quite enough to produce a
world of vexation and controversy forty years ago ; and the English reader to
whom all such details are denied, will certainly never be abje to compre-
hend either the merits or the demerits of many of Burns*s most remarkable
productions. Since I have touched on this matter at all, I may as well
add, that Hamilton'^ family, though professedly adhering to the Presbyte-
rian Establishment, had always lain under a strong suspicion of Episcopa-
lianism. Gavin's grandfather had been curate of Kirkoswald in the troubl-
ed times that preceded the Revolution, and incurred great and lasting po-
pular hatred,- in consequence of being supposed to have had a principal
hand in bringing a thousand of the Highland host into that region in 1677-8.
The district was commonly said not to have entirely recovered the effects
of that savage visitation in less than a hundred years ; and the descendants
and representatives of the Covenanters, whom the curate of Kirkoswald
had the reputation at least of persecuting, were commonly supposed to re-
gard with any thing rather than ready good-will, his grandson, the witty
writer of Mauchline. A well-nursed prejudice of this kind was likely^
enough to be met by counter-spleen, and such seems to have been the trum
of the case. The lapse of another generation has sufficed to wipe out every
trace of feuds, that were still abundantly discernible, in the days when
Ayrshire first began to ring with the equally zealous applause and vituper-
ation oii —
" Poet Bums.
And his priest-skelping tuxnt.**
It is impossible to look back now to the civil war, which then raged
among the churchmen of the west of Scotland, without confessing, that on
either side there was much to regret, and not a little to blame. Proud
and haughty spirits were unfortunately opposed to each other ; and in the
superabundant display of zeal as to doctrinal points, neither party seems
to have niingled much of the charity of the Christian temper. The whole
exhibition was unlovely — the spectacle of such indecent violence among
the leading Ecclesiastics of the district, acted most unfavourably on many
men's minds^ — and no one can doubt that in the unsettled state of Robert
Bums's principles, the effect must have been powerful as to him.
Macgill and Dalrymple, the two ministers of the town of Ayr, had long
been suspected of entertaining heterodox opinions on several points, par-
ticularly the doctrine of original sin, and even of the Trinity ; and the for-
mer at length published an Essay, which was considered as demanding
the notice of the Church-courts. More than a year was spent m the disr
cussions which arose out of this ; and at last Dr. Macgill was fain to ac-
knowledge his errors, and promise that he would take an early opportunity
of i^pologizing for them to his own congregation from the pulpit — which
promii^ boweveri he ^ever performed* The gentry of the country took,
Mtv LIFB Of ROAERT BURNS.
finr the most ]iart, the side of Macgill, who was a man of cold unpopular
nuumersy but of unreproached morsd character, and possessed of some ac-
complishments, though certainly not of distinguished talents. The bulk
of the lower orders espoused, with far more fervid zeal, the cause of those
who conducted the prosecution against this erring doctor. Gavin Hamil-
tOD, and all persons of his stamp, were of course on the side of Macgill —
Auld, and the Mauchline elders, were his enemies. Mr. Robert Aiken, a
writer in Ayr, a man of remarkable talents, particularly in public speaking,
had the principal management of MacgilFs cause before the Presbjrtery,
and, I believe, also before the Synod. He was an intimate friend of Ha-
milton, and through him had about this time formed an acquaintance, which
soon ripened into a warm friendship, with Burns. Bums, therefore, was
from the beginning a zealous, as in the end he was perhaps the most effective
partizan, of the side on which Aiken had staked so much of his reputation.
Macgill, Dalrymple, and their brethren, suspected, with more or less jus-
tice, of leaning to heterodox opinions, are the New Light pastors of his
earliest satires. The prominent antagonists of these men, and chosen cham-
pions of the AuldlAglUj in Ayrshire, it must now be admitted on all hands,
presented, in many particulars of personal conduct and demeanour, as broad
a mark as ever tempted the shafbs of a satirist lliese men prided them-
selves on being the legitimate and undegenerate descendants and repre-
sentatives of the haughty Puritans, who chiefly conducted the overthrow
of Popery in Scotland, and who ruled for a time, and would fain have con-
tinued to rule, over both king and people, with a more tyrannical dominion
than ever the Catholic priesthood itself had been able to exercise amidst
that hi^-spirited nation. With the horrors of the Papal system for ever
in their mouths, these men were in &ct as bigoted monks, and almost as
rdentless inquisitors in their hearts, as ever wore cowl and cord — austere
and ungracious of aspect, coarse and repulsive of address and manners-
very Pharisees as to the lesser matters of the law, and many of them, to all
outward appearance at least, overflowing with pharisaical^ self-conceit, as
well as monastic bile. That admirable qualities lay concealed under this
ungainly exterior, and mingled with and cnecked the worst of these gloomy
passions, no candid man will permit himself to doubt or suspect for a mo-
ment ; and that Bums has grossly overcharged his portraits of them, deep*
•ning shadows that were of themselves sufficiently dark, and excluding al-
together those brighter, and perhaps softer, traits of character, which re-
deemed the originals within the sympathies of many of the worthiest and
best of men, seems equally clear. Their bitterest enemies dared not at
least to bring against them, even when the feud was at its height of fervour,
chiM^s of l^t heinous sort, which they fearlessly, and I fear Justly, pre-
ferred against their antagonists. No one ever accused them of signing the
Articles, administering the sacraments, and eating the bread of a Church,
whose fundamental doctrines they disbelieved, and, by insinuation at least,
disavowed.
The law of Church-patronage was another subject on which controversy
ran high and furious in the district at the same period ; the actual condi-
tion of things on this head being upheld by all the men of the New Light,
and condemned as equally at variance with the precepts of the gospel, and
the rights of freemen, by not a few of the other party, and, in particular,
by certain conspicuous zealots in the immediate neighbourhood of Bums.
While thia w^rnins ragedi there broke out an intestine discwd within Ae
LIFE OP ROBERT BURNS. xxt
I
Mttnp of the ftciion which he loved not. Two of the foremost leaders of
the Auld Light party quarrelled about a question of parish- boundaries ;
the matter was taken up in the Presbyter j of Kilmarnock, and there, in
the open court, to which the announcement of the discussion had drawn a
multitude of the country people, and Burns among the rest, the reverend
dirines, hitherto sworn friends and associates, lost all command of temper,
and abused each other coram popido^ with a fiery virulence of personal in-
vective, such as has long been banished from all popular assemblies, where-
in the laws of courtesy arc enforced by those of a certain unwritten code.
" The first of my poetic offspring that saw the light," says Bums, " wag
a burlesque lamentation on a quarrel between two reverend Calvinists, both
of them dramatis perionm in my Ifofy Fair. I had a notion myself, that
the piece had some merit : but to prevent the worst, I gave a copy of it to
a friend who was very fond of such things, and told him that 1 could not
guess who was the author of it, but that I thought it pretty clever. With
a certain description of the clergy, a& well as laity, it met with a roar of
appknue." This was The Holy Tuilzie, or Tioa Herds, The two herdg^
or pastors, were Mr. Moodie, minister of Uiccartoun, and that favourite vic-
tim of Bums's, John Russell, then minister of Kilmarnock, and afterwards
of Stirling*— " From this time,'* Burns says, ** I began to be known in the
country as a maker of rhymes Holy Willies Prayer next made its
appearance, and alarmed the kirk-session so much, that they held several
meetings to look over their spiritual artillery, and see if any of it might
be pointed against profane rhymers. Burns's reverend editor, Mr. Paul»
presents Holy Willie's Prayer at full length, although not inserted in Dr.
Currie's edition, and calls on the friends of religion to bless the memory of
the poet who took such a judicious method of " leading the liberal mind to
a rational view of the nature of prayer." — " This/* says that bold com-
mentator, ** was not only the prayer of Holy Willie, but it is merely the
metrical version of every prayer that is offered up by those who call them-
selvea the pure reformed church of Scotland. In the course of his read-
ing and polemical warfare, Bums embraced and defended the opinions of
Taylor of Norwich, Macgill, and that school of Divines. He could not
reconcile his mind to that picture of the Being, whose very essence is
love» which is drawn by the high Calvinists or the representatives of the
Ccrenanters — ^namely, that he is disposed to grant salvation to none but
a few of their sect ; that the whole Pagan world, the disciples of Maho-
met* the Roman Catholics, the Lutlicrans, and even the Calvinists who
differ fh>m them in certain tenets, must, like Korah, Dathan and Abiram,
descend to the pit of perdition, man, woman, and child, without the possi-
iHlity of escape ; but such are the identical doctrines of the Camcroniana
of the present day, and such was Holy Willie's style of prayer. The hy-
pocrisy and dishonesty of the man, who was at the time a reputed Saint,
were perceived by tlie discerning penetration of Bums, and to expose
them he considered his duty. The terrible view o£ the Deity exhibited
in that able production is precisely the same view which is given of him,
in different words, by many devout preachers at present. They inculcate,
that tlie greatest sinner is the greatest favourite of heaven — that a reform-
ed bawd is more acceptable to the Almighty than a pure virgin, who has
hardly ever transgressed even in thought — that the lost sheep alone will be
saved, and that the ninety-and-nine out of the hundred will be lefl in the
to perish without mercy — that the Saviour of the world lovea
6
xxTi LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS.
the elect, not from any lovely qualities which they posBess* for they are
hateful in his sight, but ** he loves them because he loves them.** Such
are the sentiments which are breathed by those who are denominated High
Calvinists, and from which the soul of a poet who loves mankind, and who
has not studied the systen) in all its bearings, recoils with horror. • • • The
gloomy forbidding representation which they give of the Supreme Being,
has a tendency to produce insanity, and lead to suicide.** *
This Reverend author may be considered as expressing in the above,
and in other passages of a similar tendency, the sentiments with which
even the most audacious of Bums*s anti-calvinistic satires were received
among the Ayrshire divines of the New Light ; that performances so blas-
phemous should have been, not' only pardoned, but applauded by minis-
ters of religion, is a singular circumstance, which may go far to make the
reader comprehend the exaggerated state of party feeling in Bums*s native
county, at the period when he first appealed to the public ear : nor is it
fair to pronounce sentence upon the young and reckless satirist, without tak-
ing into consideration the undeniable fact — that in his worst offences of
this kind, he was encourapjed and abetted by those, who, to say nothing
more about their professional character and authority, were almost the
only persons of liberal education whose society he had any opportunity of
approaching at the period in question. Had Burns received, at this time,
from his clerical friends and patrons, such advice as was tendered, when
rather too late, by a lajnuan who v/cs as far from bigotry on religious sub-
jects as any man in the world, this great genius might have made his first
approaches to the public notice in a very different character. — ** Let your
bright talents," — (thus wrote the excellent John Uomsay of Ochtertyre, in
October 1787), — •« Let those bright talents which the Almighty has be-
stowed on you, be hencefortli employed to the noble purpose of supporting
the cause of truth and virtue. An imagination so varied and forcible as
yours, may do this in many different modes ; nor is it necessary to be al-
ways serious, which you have been to good purpose ; good morals may be
recommended in a comedy, or even in a song. Great allowances are due
to the heat and inexperience of youth ; — and few poets can boast, like
Thomson, of never having written a line, which, dying, they would wish to
blot In particular, I wish you to keep clear of the thorny walks of satire,
which makes a man an hundred enemies for one friend, and is doubly dan-
gerous when one is supposed to extend the slips and weaknesses of indi-
viduals to their sect or party. About modes of faith, serious and excellent
men have alwoys differed ; and there are certain curious questions, which
may afford scope to men of metaphysical heads, but seldom mend the
heart or temper. Whilst these points are beyond human ken, it is suffi-
cient that all our sects concur in their views of morak. You will forgive
me for these hints."
It is amusing to observe how soon even really Bucolic bards learn the
tricks of their trade : Burns knew already what lustre a compliment gains
from being set in sarcasm, when he made Willie call for special notice of
^^ Gaun ITanniIton*8 deserti, ....
He drinks, and k wears, and plays ut carts ;
Yet has soe mony taken* arts
Wi* great and sma*,
Frac Qod*s ain pricjtts the pcoplu*s hearts
He steals awa,** ^c
* The Her. Hamilton PauTs Life of Boms, pp. 40, 4L
UF£ OF ROBERT BURNS. uvil
Nor 11 his other patron, Aiken, introduced with inferior skill, as having
merited Willie's most fervent execration by his " glib-tongued*' defiance of
the heterodox doctor of Ayr :
*' Lord ! Tisit them whs did employ him.
And for thy people's lake destroy 'em.*'
. Bums owed a compliment to this gentleman for a well-timed exercise of
hia elocutionary talents. ** I never knew there was any merit in my poems,"
said he, " untU Mr. Aitkcn read them into repute."
Encouraged by the *' roar of applause" which greeted these pieces, thus
orally promulgated and recommended, he produced in succession various
satires wherein the same set of persons were lashed ; as The Ordinaiumf
The Kirh*s Alarm^ &c. &c. ; and last, and best undoubtedly, The Ho^
Fmr^ in which^ unlike the others that have been mentioned, satire keeps
its own place, and is subservient to the poetry of Burns. This was, in-
deed, an extraordinary performance ; no partizan of any sect could whisper
that malice had formed its principal inspiration, or that its chief attraction
lay in the boldness with which individuals, entitled and accustomed to re-
spect, were held up to ridicule : it was acknowledged amidst the sternest
mutter ings of wrath, that national manners were once more in the hands
of a national poet. The Holy Fairy however, created admiration, not sur-
prise, among the circle of domestic friends who had been admitted to watch
the steps of his progress in an ai't of which, beyond that circle, little or
nothing was heard until the youthful poet produced at length a satirical
master-piece. ♦ It is not possible to reconcile the stiitcmcnts of Gilbert and
others, as to some of the minutia* of the chronological history of Bums*s
previous performances ; but there can be no doubt, that although from
choice or accident, his first provincial fame was that of a satirist, he had»
some time before any of his philippics on the Auld Light Divines made
their appearance, exhibited to those who enjoyed his personal confidencey
a range of imaginative power hardly inferior to what the holy Fair itself dis-
plays ; and, at least, such a ral)idly improving skill in poetical language
and versification, as must have prepared them for witnessing, without won-
der, even the most perfect specimens of his art. Gilbert says, that ** among
the earliest of his poems," was the Epistle to Davie^ (s. e, Mr. David Sillar),
and Mr. Walker believes that this was written very soon ofler the death of
William Bumes. This piece is in the very intricate and difficult measure
of the Cherry and the Slae ; and, on the whole, the poet moves with ease
and grace in his very unnecessary trammels : but young poets are careless
beforehand of difficulties which would startle the experienced ; and great
poets may overcome any difficulties if they once grapple with them ; so
that I should rather ground my distrust of Gilbert's statement, if it must
be literally taken, on the celebration of Jemi^ with which the epistle ter-
minates : and, afler all, she is celebrated in the concluding stanzas, which
may have been added some time after the first draught. The gloomy cir-
cumstances of the poet's personal condition, as described in this piece,
were common, it cannot be doubted, to all the years of his youthful his*
tory ; so that no particular date is to be founded upon these ; and if this
was the firstf certainly it was not the last occasion, on which Burns ex-
ercised his fancy in the colouring of the very worst issue that could attend
a life of unsuccessful toil. But Gilbert's recollections, however on trivial
points inaccurate, will always be more interesting than any thing that could
xxviii . LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS.
be pot in their place. ** Robert," says he, ** often composed without any
regular plan, when any thing made a strone impression on his mind, so
as to rouse it to poetic exertion, he would give way to the impulse, and
embody the thought in rhyme. If he hit on two or three stanzas to please
him, he would then think of proper introductory, connecting, and conclude
,ing stanzas ; hence the middle of a poem was ofien first produced. It was,
I Slink, in summer 1784, when in tne interval of harder labour, he and I
were weeding in the garden (kail-yard), that he repeated to me the prin«
cipal part of his epistle (to Davie). I believe the first idea of Robert's
becoming an author was started on this occasion. I was much pleased
with the epistle, and said to him I was of opinion it would bear beinff
printed, and that it would be well received by people of taste ; that i
Ihought it at least equal, if not superior, to many of Allan Ramsay's epis-
tles, and that the merit of these, and much other Scotch poetry, seemed
to consist principally in the knack of the expression — ^but here, there was
a strain of interesting sentiment, and the Scotticism of the language scarce-
ly seemed affected, but appeared to be the natural language of the poet ;
that, besides, there was certainly some novelty in a poet pointing out the
consolations that were in store for him when he should go a-begging. Ro«
bert seemed very well pleased with my criticism, and he talked of sending
it to some magazine ; but as this plan afforded no opportunity of knowing
how it would take, the idea was dropped. It was, I think, in the winter
following, as we were going together with carts for coal to the family, (and
I could yet point out the particular spot), that the author first repeated to
me the Address to the DeiL Tlie curious idea of such an address was sug-
gested to him, by running over in his mind the many ludicrous accounts
and representations we have, from various quarters, of this august person-
age. Death and Doctor Hornbook^ though not published in the Kilmar-
nock edition, was produced early in the year 17b5. The schoolmaster of
Tarbolton parish, to eke^ up the scanty subssitence allowed to that useful
class of men, had set up a shop of grocery goods. Having accidentally
fallen in with some medical books, and become most hobby-horsically at-
tached to the study of medicine, he had added the sale of a few medi-
cines to his little trade. He had got a shop-bill printed, at the bottom of
which, overlooking his own incapacity, he had advertised, that <' Advice
would be given in common disorders at the shop gratis." Robert was at a
mason-meeting in Tarbolton, when the Dominie unfortunately made too
ostentatious a display of his medical skill. As he parted in the evening
firom this mixture of pedantry and physic, at the place where he describes
his meeting with Death, one of those floating ideas of apparitions, he men-
tions in his letter to Dr. Moore, crossed his mind ; this set him to work for
the rest of the way home. These circumstances he related when he re-
peated the verses to me next aflemoon, as I was holding the' ploueh, and
he was letting the water off the field beside me. The JEptstU to John Lap-
raik was produced exactly on the. occasion described by tlie author. He
says in that poem. On Fasten^'en toe had a rockin\ I believe he has omit-
ted the word rocking in the glossary. It is a term derived from those
primitive times, when the country-women employed their spare hours in
spinning on the rock or distaff*. This simple implement is a very portable
one, and well fitted to the social inclination of meeting in a neighbour's
bouse ; hence the phrase ongoing a-rocking, or unth the rock. As the con-
nexion die phrase bad with the implement was forgotten when' the rock
LIFE 09 ROBERT SURiTS. xxtj^
gtf 6 jJaoe to tlie •pinning-wheely the phrase came to be luea by both
8ei€i on social occasions^ and men talk of going with their rocks as well as
women. It was at one of these rockingt at our house, when wc had twelve
or fifteen joung people with their rodu^ that Lapraik's song, beffinnmg—
'* When I upon thy bosom lean," was sung, and we were informed who was.
the author. Upon this Robert wrote his first epistle to Lapraik ; and his
second in reply to his answer. The verses to the Mouse and Mouniain
Jkdty were composed on the occasions mentioned, and while the author
was holding the plough ; 1 could point out the particular spot where each
was composed. Holding the plough was a favourite situation with Robert
for poetic compositions, and some of his best verses were produced while
be was at that exercise. Several of the poems were produced for the pur-
pose of bringing forward some favourite sentiment (H the author. He used
to remark to me, that he could not well conceive a more mortifying picture
of human life than a roan seeking work. In casting about in his mind how
this sentiment might be brought forward, the elegy, Man was made to
Mowrn^ was composed. Robert had frequently remarked to me, that he
thought there was something peculiarly venerable in the phrase, *< Let us
worship God," used by a decent sober head of a family introducing family
worship. To this sentiment of the author the world is indebted for The Cot'
iar'M Saturday Night The hint of the plan, and title of the poem, were taken
from Ferguson's Farmer^s Ingle. When Robert had not some pleasure
in view, in which I was not thought fit to participate, we used frequently
to walk together, when the weather was favourable, on the Sunday afler«
noons, (those precious breathing-times to the labouring part of the com*
munity), and enjoyed such Sundays as would make one regret to see their
number abridged. It was in one of these walks that I first had the pleasure
of hearing the author repeat The Cottar* s Saturdof/ Night, I do not recollect
to have read or heard any thing by which I was more highly electrffied.
The fifUi and six stanzas, and the eighteenth^ thrilled with peculiar ecstacy
through my soiil."
The poems mentioned by Gilbert Burns in the above extract, are among
the most popular of his brother's performances ; and tliere may be a time
for recurring to some of their peculiar merits as works of art It may be
mentioned here, that John Wilson, alias Dr. Hornbook, was not merely
compelled to shut up shop as an apothecary, or druggist rather, by the sa«
tire which bears liis name ; but so irresistible was the tide of ridicule, that
his pupils, one by one, deserted him, and he abandoned his schoolcrafl also.
Removing to Glasgow, and turning himself successfully to commercial
pursuits. Dr. Hornbook survived the local storm which he could not cffec*
tually withstand, and was oflen heard in his latter days, when waxing cheer-
ful and communicative over a bowl of punch, *' in the Saltmarket»" to bless
the lucky hour in which the dominie of Tarbolton provoked the castigation
of Robert Bums. In those days the Scotch universities did not turn out
doctors of physic by the hundred ; Mr. Wilson's was probably the only
medicine-chest from which salts and senna were distributed for the benefit
of a considerable circuit of parishes ; and his advictf, to say the least of the
matter, was perhaps as good as could be had, for love or money, among the
wise women who were the only rivals of his practice. The poem which
drofe him from Ayrshire was not, we may believe, eitlier expected or de«
signed to produce any such serious efiect* Poor Hornbook and the poet
were old acquaintances, and in some sort rival wits at the time in the mt^ '
9oa lodge.
joit Lm 09 ROBERT Bt7RN&
In Man wu made to Mourn, whatever might be the casual idea that set
the poet to work, it is but too evident, tliAt he wrote from the habitual
feelings of his own bosom. The indignation with which he through )ife
contemplated the inequality of human condition, and particularly, the con-
trast between his own worldly circumstances and intellectual rank, was
never more bitterly, nor more loftily, expressed, than in some of those
stanzas :«-
** See youder p6or o^erUbour'd wight^
So abject, mean, and vile,
Who b^ a brother of the earth
To give him leave to toil.
And see his lordly feUow worm
The poor petition ipum,
Unminaful, tlio* a weeping wife *
And helpless (^spring mourn.
If Tm designM yon lordling's ilave—
By Nature*s laws de8ign*a—
Why was an independent wish
E*er planted in my mind ?
If not, why am I subject to
His cruelty and scorn,
Or why has man the will and power
To make his fellow mourn ?^
** I had an old grand-uncle," says the poet, in one of his letters to Mrs.
Dunlop, ** with whom my mother lived in her girlish years ; the good old
man, for such he was, was blind long ere he died ; during which time his
highest enjoyment was to sit down and cry, while my mother would sing
the simple old song of The Life and Age ^ Man'*
In Man was made to Mourn, Durns appears to have taken many hints
from this ancient ballad, which begins tlius :
'^ Upon the sixteen hundred year of God, and fifby-three,
Frae Christ was bom, that bought us dear, as wridngs tettifie;
On January, the sixteenth day, as I did lie alone,
With many a sigh and sob did say^Ah ! man is made to moan !***
The CotUare Saturday NigJu is, perhaps, of all Bums*s pieces, the one
whose exclusion from the collection, were such things possible now-a-days,
would be the most injurious, if not to the genius, at least to tlie character,
of the man. In spite of many feeble lines, and some heavy stanzas, it ap-
pears to me, that even his genius would suffer more in estimation, by being
contemplated in the absence of this poem, than of any other single perform-
ance he has lefl us. Loflier flights he certainly has made, but in these he
remained but a short while on Uie wing, and effort is too oflen perceptible ;
here the motion is easy, gentle, placidly undulating. There is more of the
conscious security of power, than in any other of his serious pieces of con-
siderable length ; the whole has the appearance of coming in a fiill stream
from the fountain of the heart — a stream that soothes the ear, and has no
glare on the surface.
It is delightful to turn from any of the pieces which present so great a
genius as writhing under an inevitable burden, to this, where his buoyant
energy seems not even to feel the pressure. The miseries of toil and pe-
nury, who shall affect to treat as unreal ? Yet they shrunk to small dimen-
■ions in the presence of a spirit thus exalted at once, and soUened, by the
pieties of virgin love, filial reverence, and domestic devotion.
* Cromek*8 Scottinh Songs.
LIFE OP ROBERT BURNS.
The Ot>Uar*M Saturday Ntgkt and the Holy Fair have been put m con-
thMt, and much marrel made that they should have sprung from thcf lamo
source. " The annual celebration of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper
in the rural parishes of Scotland, has much in it," says the unfortuzutte
Heron, <^ of those old popish festivals, in which superstition, traffic, and
amusement, used to be strangely intermingled. Burns saw and seized in
it <me of the happiest of all subjects to afford scope for the display of that
strong and piercing sagacity, by which he could almost intuitively distin-
guish the reasonable from the absurd, and tlie becoming from the ri£culous ;
of that picturesque power of fancy which enabled him to represent scenes,
and persons, and groups, and looks, and attitudes, and gestures, in a manner
ahnost as lively and impressive, even in words, as if all the artifices and ener-
gies of the pencil had been employed ; of that knowledge which he had ne-
cessarily acquired of the manners, passions, and prejudices of the rustics
around him — of whatever was ridiculous, no less than whatever was affect-
ingly beautiful in rural life." This is very good, but who ever disputed the
exquisite graphic trutli of the poem to which the critic refers? The ques-
tion remains as it stood ; is there then nothing besides a strange mixture
of superstition, traffic, and amusement, in the scene which such an annual
celebration in a rural parish of Scotland presents ? Does nothing of what
it « affiectingly beautiful in rural life," make a part in the original which
was before the poet's eyes? Were "Superstition," •* Hypocrisy," and
** Fun,'* the only influences which he might justly have impersonated ? It
would be hard, I think, to speak so even of the old popish festivals to which
Mr. Heron alludes ; it would be hard, surely, to say it of any festival in
which, mingled as they may be with sanctimonious pretenders, and sur-
rounded with giddy groups of onlookers, a mighty multitude of devout men
are assembled for the worship of God, beneath the open heaven, and above
the tombs of their fathers.
Let us beware, however, of pushing our censure of a young poet, mad
with the inspiration of the moment, from whatever source derived, too far.
It can hardly be doubted that the author of The Cottar » Saturday Night
had felt, in his time, all that any man can feel in the contemplation of the
most sublime of the religious observances of his country ; and as little, that
had he taken up the subject of this rural sacrament in a solemn mood, he
might have produced a piece as gravely beautiful, as his Hoty Fair is
quaint, graphic, and picturesque. A scene of family worship, on the other
hand, I can easily imagine to have come from his hand as pregnant with the
ludicrous as that Holy Fair itself. The family prayers of the Saturday's
night, and the rural celebration of the Eucharist, are parts of the same sys-
tem— ^the system which has made the people of Scotland what they are-*-
and what, it is to be hoped, they will continue to be. And when men ask
of themselves what this great national poet really thought of a system in
which minds immeasurably inferior to his can see so much to venerate, it
Is surely just that they should pay most attention to what he has delivered
under Uie gravest sanction.
The Reverend Hamilton Paul does not desert his post on occasion of
7%e Holy Fair; he defends that piece as manfully as Holy JVHHe; and»
indeed, expressly applauds Burns for having endeavoured to explode ** a*
bmes discountenanced by the General Assembly." Hallowe*aii^ a descrip«
ttre poem, perhaps even more exquisitely wrought than the Holy FaJir^
mA oonfaining nothing that could offend the feelings of anybody^ waa pnn
tttii Ltn 01^ RObERt Btrntrs.
AiMd about die Mme periocL Bums's art had ncm readied tti dtnudt ;
Kilt it ia Ume that we should revert more particularlj to the personal hU«
tonr of the poet.
He seems to have very soon perceived, that the farm of Mossglel eotiU
at the best furnish no more than the bare means of existence to io lartfe
a fiunily ; and wearied with ** the prospects drear/' fVom which he omy
escaped in occasional intervals of social merriment, or when gay flashes ttf
Solitary fancy, for they were no more, threw sunshine on every thing, he
very naturally took up the notion of quitting Scotland for a time, and try*
ing his fortune in the West Indies, where, as is well known, the manageft
of the plantations are, in the great majority of cases, Scotchmen of Buma*a
own rank and condition. His letters show, thdt on two or three different
occasions, long before his poetry had excited any attention, he had applied
ibr, and nearly obtained appointments of this sort, through the intervention
of his acquaintances in the sea-port of Irvine. Petty accidents, not worth
describing, interfered to disappoint him from time to time ; but at last a
new burst of misfortune rendered him doubly anxious to escape from hk
native land ; and but for an accident, his arrangements would certainly
have been completed. But we must not come quite so rapidly to the last
of his Ayrshire love-stories. How many lesser romances of this order were
evolved and completed during his residence at Mossgiel, it is needless to
inquire ; that they were many, his songs prove, for in those days he wrote
no love-songs on imaginary Heroines. Marjf Moruon — Bekmd yen kills
where Stmehar flows — On Cessnock bank there lives a lass — ^belong to this
period ; and there arc three or four inspired by Mary Campbell---the ob-
ject of by far the deepest passion that ever Bums knew, and which he has
accordingly immortalized in the noblest of his elegiacs. In introducing
to Mr. Thomson's notice the song, —
" Will ?e go to the Indten, my Mary,
And leave auld Scoda*s snore ?—
Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary,
Across tlie Atlantic's roar ?**
Bums says, '< tn my early years, when I was thinking of going to the Weft
Indies, I took this farewell of a dear girl ;*' afterwards, in a note on—*
*^ Ve banks, and braes, and streams around
The Castel o* Mootgomerie ;
OiCen be your woods, and fur your flowerSi
Your waters never drumlie.*'
he adds,-*<< After a pretty long trial of die most ardent reciprocal afle^
tion, we met by appointment on the second Sunday of May, in a sequester*
ed spot by the bsinks of Ayr, where we spent a day in taking a farwell be^
fore she should embark for the West Highlands, to arrange matters among
her friends for our projected change of life. At the close of the autumn
following she crossed the sea to meet me at Greenock, where she hadi
scarce landed when she was seized with a malignant fever, whidi hurried
my dear girl to her grave in a few days, before I could even hear of her 01*
ness ;" and Mr. Cromek, speaking of the same ^< day of parting love,** givii
some further particulars. '* This adieu," says that aealous inquirer into thf
details of Burns's story, « was performed with all those simple andMriUiy
ceremonialsi which rustic sentiment has devised t4T fffrlong f ander omffti ffm
LIFE OF R06ERT BURKS. xixiU
ahd to impose we. The lovers stood on each side of a small purling brook
«— they laved their hands in the limpid stream — and, holding a Bible be«
tween them, pronounced their vows to be faithful to each other. They
parted— never to meet again." It is proper to add, that Mr. Cromek*s story
has recently been confirmed very strongly by the accidental discovery of a
Bible presented by Bums to Mcny Campbell, in the possession of her still
surviving sister at Ardrossan. Upon the boards of the first volume is in-
acribed, in Bums's hand-writing, — << And ye shall not swear by my name
falsely*— I am the Lord." — Levit. chap. xix. v. 12. On the second volume,
^^** Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine
mUl"— -St Matth. chap, v., v. 33. And, on a blank leaf of either, — « Ro-
bert Bums, Mossgiel." How lasting was the poet*s remembrance of this
pure love, and its tragic termination, will be seen hereafler. Highland
Mary seems to have died ere her lover had made any of his more serious
attempts in poetry. In the Epistle to Mr. Sillar, (as we have already hint-
ed), the very earliest, according to Gilbert, of Uiese attempts, the poet
oelebfBtes " his Davie and his Jean" This was Jean Armour, a young
woman, a step, if any thing, above Burns*s own rank in life, the daughter
of a respectable man, a master-mason, in the village of Mauchline, where
^e was at the time the reigning toast, and who still survives, as the re-
spected widow of our poet. There are numberless allusions to her maiden
OTarms in the best pieces which he produced at Mossgiel ; amongst others
k the six BeUes of Mauchline, at the head of whom she is placed.
*' In Mauchline there dwells tax proper your.e belles.
The pride of the phice and its neighbourhood a* ;
Their carriage and dress, a stranger would guess,
In Ijon'on or Paris they'd gotten it a* :
" Miss I^Iillar is fine, Miss Markland*s divine,
Aliss Smith she' has wit, and Miss Betty is brnw ;
There*s beauty and fortune to get wi' Miss Morton,
But Armour's the jewel for me o' them a\"
The time is not yet come, in which all the details of this story can be ex-
pected. Jean Armour found herself pregnant.
Bums*s worldly circumstances were in a most miserable state when he
was informed of Miss Armour's condition ; and the first announcement of
it staggered him like a blow. He saw nothing for it but to ^y the country
at once ; and, in a note to James Smith of Mauchline. the confidant of his
amour, he thus wrote : — " Against two things I am fixed as fate — staying
at home, and owniiig her conjugally. The first, by Heaven, I will not do !
— the last, by hell, I will never do ! — A good God bless you, and make
you happy, up to the warmest weeping wish of parting friendship ,
If you see Jean, tell her I will meet her, so help me God, in my hour of
need*" The lovers met accordingly ; and the result of the meeting was
what was to be anticipated from the tenderness and the manliness of Burns*8
feelings. All dread of personal inconvenience yielded at once to the tears
of the woman he loved, and, ere they parted, he gave into her keeping a
written acknowledgment of marriage. This, under the circumstances, and
Eroduced by a person in Miss Armour's condition, according to the Scots
iw, was to be accepted as legal evidence of an irregular marriage having
really taken place ; it being of course understood that the marriage was to
be formally avowed as soon as the consequences of their imprudence could
no longer be concealed from her familv, Th^ disclosure was deferred tQ
• 7 '
LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS.
the last moment, and it was received by the father of Miss Atmoitr with
equal surprise and anger. Bums, confessing himself to be unequal to the
maintenance of a family, proposed to go immediately to Jamaica, where he
hoped to find better fortunes. He offered, if this were rejected, to aban«
don his farm, which was by this time a hopeless concern, and earn bread,
at least for his wife and children, by his labour at home ; but nothing could
appease the indignation of Armour. By what arguments he prevailed on
his daughter to take so strange and so painful a step we know not ; but the
fact is certain, that, at his urgent entreaty, she destroyed the document.
It was under such extraordinary circumstances that Miss Armour be-
came the mother of twins. — Bums s love and pride, the two most powerful
feelings of his mind, had been equally wounded. His anger and grief to-
gether drove him, according to every account, to the verge of absolute
insanity ; and some of his letters on this occasion, both published and un-
published, have certainly all the appearance of having been written in as
deep a concentration of despair as ever preceded the most awful of human
calamities. His first thought had been, as we have seen, to fly at once
from the scene of his disgrace and misery ; and this course seemed now to
be absolutely necessary. He was summoned to find security for the main-
tenance of the children whom he was prevented from legitimating ; but
the man who had in his desk the immortal poems to whi(£ we have been
referring above, either disdained to ask, or tried in vain to find, pecuniary
assistance in his hour of need ; and the only alternative that presented it*
aelf to his view was America or a jaiL
CHAPTER IV.
CtoWaiiH-^TI* Ptt g%t$» np MoupUl to hit Brother Gilbert — TiUeudt for JanuuetUmt
StAmrifiti§M Sdithm of hit Poema tuggtnttd to tupply meant of omtjit — Out of 600 eopiu
pwimltd €i XUmarmoek, 1786<— A bringt him extended reputation, and £20^Alto many
Mry UrndfrUnd^ hut no patron — In thett circumstances, Guaging Jirtt hinitd to him ly
Mf oatig fritmdtt Hamilton and Aiken — Sayinpt and doingt in thejirst gear of hitfame^-^
^■■I'm tigain In vitm — PEm detitted from becaute of encouragement bg J}r, BkuUoek
i^fmUitk td BdMmykf vktnin the Poet tojourns.
^>He law misfortune*! eauld nor^-vett^
Liag muttering up a bitter blast ;
A julet brak his heart at but,
111 may >he be !
So, took a birth afore th^ mast.
An* owre the sea.**
jAif AicA was now his mark, for at that time the United States were
sot looked to as the place of refuge they have since become. After some
little time> and not a little trouble, the situation of assistant-overseer on
the estate of Dr. Douglas in that colony, was procured for him by one of
his friends in the town of Irvine. Money to pay for his passage, however,
he bad not; and it at last occurred to him that the few pounds requisite
for this purpose, might be raised by the publication of some of the finest
poems that ever delighted mankind.
His landlord, Gavin Hamilton, Mr. Aiken, and other friends, encouraged
him warmly ; and after some hesitation, he at length resolved to hazard an
experiment which might perhaps better his circumstances ; and, if any tole-
rable number of subscribers could be procured, could not make them worse
than they were already. His rural patrons exerted themselves with suc-
cett in the matter ; and so many copies were soon subscribed for, that
Bums entered into terms with a printer in Kilmarnock, and began to copy
out his performances for the press. He carried his MSS. piecemeal to the
jyrinter ; and encouraged by the ray of light which unexpected patronage
had begun to throw on his affairs, composed, while the printing was in pro-
gress, some of the best poems of the collection. The tale of the Twa jiogt^
for instance, with which the volume commenced, is known to have been
written in the short interval between the publication being determined on
and the printing begun. His own account of the business to Dr. Moore is
jtt follows : —
^ I gave up my part of the farm to my brother : in truth, it was only
nominally mine ; and made what little preparation was in my power for
Jamaica. But before leaving my native land, I resolved to publish my
Poems. I weighed my productions as impartially as was in my power : I
thought they had merit ; and it was a delicious idea that I should be called
a clever fellow, even though it should never reach my ears — a poor negro-
driTer— or, perhaps, a victim to that inhospitable clime, and gone to the
%%xvi LIFE OP ROBERT BURNS.
world of spirits, t can truly say that, pattvre inconnu as I then was, I had
pretty nearly as high an idea of myself and of ray works as I have at this
moment when the public has decided in their favour. It ever was my opi«
nion, that the mistakes and blunders, both in a rational and religious point
of view, of which we sec thousands daily guilty, are owing to their igno-
rance of themselves. — To know myself, had been all along my constant
study. I weighed myself alone ; I balanced myself with others : I watch-
ed every means of information, to see how much ground I occupied as a
man and as a poet : I studied assiduously Nature's design in my formation—
where the lights and shades in character were intended. I was pretty cmii*
fident my poems would meet with some applause ; but, at the worst, the
roar of the Atlantic would deafen tlie voice of censure, and the novelty of
West Indian scenes make me forget neglect. I threw off si3( hundred copies,
for which I got subscriptions for about three hundred and fifty.*—- My va*
nity was highly gratified by the reception I met with from the public ; and
besides, I pocketed nearly £20. This sum came very seasonably, as I was
thinking of indenting myself, for want of money to procure my passage. As
soon as I was master of nine guineas, the price of wafting me to the torrid
zone, 1 took a steerage passage in the first sliip that was to sail from the
Clyde; for
^^ Hungry ruin had me in the wind.**
*< I had been for some days skulking from covert to covert, under all the
terrors of a jail; as some ill-advised people had uncoupled the merciless
pack of the law at my heels. I had taken the last fkcewell of my fbw friends ;
my chest was on the road to Greenock ; I had composed the last song I
should ever measure in Caledonia, The gloomy night is gathering Jhsit when
a letter fVom Dr. Blacklock to a friend of mine, overthrew all my schemes*
by opening new prospects to my poetic ambition."
To the above rapid narrative of the poet, we may annex a fbw detailsy
gathered from his various biographers and fVom his own letters. — While
the Kilmarnock edition was in the press, it appears that his fViends Hamil-
ton and Aiken revolved various schemes for procuring him the means of
remaining in Scotland ; and having studied some of the practical branches
of mathematics, as we have seen, and in particular guaging^ it occurred to
himself that a situation in the Excise might be better suited to him than any
other he was at all likely to obtain by the intervention of such patrons as Ii^^
poatessed. He appears to have lingered longer after the pubkcation of thft
poems than one might suppose fVom his own narrative, in the hope that
these gentlemen might at length succeed in their efforts in his behalf. The
poems were received with favour, even with rapture, in the county of Ayri
and ere long over the adjoining counties. " Old and young,*' thus speaka
Bobert Heron, ** high and low, grave and gay, learned or ignorant, were
alike delighted, agitated, transported. I was at that time resident in Gal-
loway, contiguous to Ayrshire, and I can well remember how even plough-
boys and maid-servants would have glady bestowed the wages they earned
the most hardly, and which they wanted to purchase necessary clothing,
if they might but procure the Works of Bums." — The poet soon foiuul
that his person also had become an object of general curiosity, and that a
lively interest in his personal fortunes was excited among some of the gen*
* QUbert Burnt mtDUons, Uut • tingle indlridttji], Mr. WilliMB ?vVf mtrcbaDt in
LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. ssxvil
try of the district^ when the details of his story reached them, as it wai
pretty sure to do, along with his modest and manly pre&ce. "^ Among
others, the celebarted FVofessor Dugald Stewart of Edinburgh, and his ac-
complished lady, then resident at their beautiful seat of Catrinet b^an to
notice him with much polite and friendly attention. Dr. Hugh Blair, who
then held an eminent place in tlie literary society of Scotland, happened
te be paying Mr. Stewart a visit, and on reading TTie Holy Fairy at once
pronounced it the ** work of a very great genius ;" and Mrs. Stewart, her-
self a poetess, flattered him perhaps still more highly by her warm com?
mendations. fiut« above all, his little volume happened to attract the no-
tice of Mrs. Dunlop of Dunlop, a lady of high birth and ample fortune^
enthosiastically attached to her country, and interested in whatever ap-
peared to concern the honour of Scotland. This excellent woman, whUe
slowly recovering from the languor of an illness, laid her hand acciden-
taOy on the new production of the provincial press, and opened the volume
at The Cotiar's Saturday Night. «' She read it over," says Gilbert, " with
the greatest pleasure and surprise ; the poet*s description of the simple
cottagers operated on her mind like the charm of a powerful exorcist, re-
pelling the demon ennui, and restoring her to her wonted inward harmony
aqd satisfaction.** Mrs. Dunlop instantly sent an express to Mossgiel, dis-
tant sixteen miles from her residence, with a very kind letter to Burns, re-
questing him to supply her, if he could, with half-a-dozen copies of the
book, and to call at Dunlop as soon as he could find it convenient. Burns
waa fWmi home, but he acknowledged the favour conferred on him in this
very interesting letter : —
«< Madam, Ayrshire^ 1786.
^ I AM truly fforry I was not at home yesterday, when I was so much
honoured with your order for my copies, and incom{)arably more by the
handsome compliments you are pleased to pay my poetic abilities. I am
folly persuaded that there is not any class of mankind so feelingly alive to
the titiUations of applause as the sons of Parnassus ; nor is it easy to con*
ceive how the heart of the poor bard dances with rapture, when those
whose character in life gives them a right to be polite judges, honour him
with thm qyprobation. Had you been thoroughly acquainted with me.
Madam, ytm could not have touched my darling heart-chord more sweetly
than by noticing my attempts to celebrate your illustrious ancestor, the
Satkmrefhis Country,
*^ Great patriot hero ! ill requited chief !'*
** The first book I met with in my early years, which I perused with
pleasure, icas The Ufe of Hannibal ; the next was The History of Sir
William Wallace : for several of my earlier years I had few other authors ;
and many a solitary hour have I stole out, afler the laborious vocations of
the day, to shed a tear over their glorious but unfortunate stories. In
those boyish days I remember in particular being struck with that part of
WaUace's story where these Imes occur —
'^ S^ne to the Leglan wood, when it was late,
^0 make a ulent and a safe retreat.**
* Sec Prose Camposhioni.
xxxviii LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS.
" I chose a fine summer Sunday, the only day my ime of life allowed,
and walked half a dozen of miles to pay my respects to the Leglan wood,
with as much devout cndisiasm as ever pilgrim did to Loretto ; and as I
explored every den and dell where I coul^l suppose my heroic countryman
to have lodged, I recoIlcQt (for even then I was a rhymer), that my heart
glowed with a wish to be able to make a song on him in some measure
equal to his merits.**
Shortly aflerwards commenced a personal acquaintance with this ami*
able ai^d intelligent lady, who seems to have filled in some degree the place
of Sa^ Mentor to the poet, and who never afterwards ceased to be^iend
him to the utmost of her power. His letters to Mrs. Dunlop form a very
large proportion of all his subsequent correspondence, and, addressed as
they were to a person, whose sex, age, rank, and benevolence, inspired at
once profound respect and a graceful confidence, will ever remain the most
pleasing of all the materials of our poet's biography.
At the residences of these new acquaintances, Bums was introduced into
society of a class which he had not before approached ; and of the mannet
in which he stood the trial, Mr. Stewart thus writes to Dr. Currie :—
" His manners were then, as they continued ever afterwards, simple,
manly, and independent ; strongly expressive of conscious geniua and
worth ; but without any tiling that indicated forwardness, arrogance, or
vanity. He took his share in conversation, but not more than belonged to
him; and listened, with apparent attention and deference, on sid>jecta
where his want of education deprived him of the means of information. If
there had been a little more of gentleness and accommodation in his tem-
per, he would, I think, have been still more interesting ; but he had been
accustomed to give law in the circle of his ordinary acquaintance ; and his
dread of any thing approaching to meanness or servility, rendered his man-
ner somewhat decided and hard. Nothing, perhaps, was more remarkablo
. among his various attainments than the fluency, and precision, and origi-
nality of his language, when he spoke in company, more particularly as no
aimed at purity in his turn of expression, and avoided, more successfully
than most Scotsmen, the peculiarities of Scottish phraseology. At this time»
Bums*s prospects in life were so extremely gloomy, that he had seriously
formed a plan for going out to Jamaica in a very humble situation, not»
however, without lamenting that his want of patronage should force him
to think of a project so repugnant to his feelings, when his ambition aimed
at no higher an object than the station of an exciseman or ganger in his
own country."
The provincial applause of his publication, and the consequent notice of
his superiors, however flattering such things must have been, were far from
administering any essential relief to the urgent necessities of Burns*s situa-
tion. Very shortly after his first visit to Catrine, where he met with the
yoimg and amiable Basil Lord Daer, whose condescension and kindness on
the occasion he celebrates in some well-known verses, we find the poet
writing to his friend, Mr. Aiken of Ayr, in the following sad strain >— ** I
have been feeling all the various rotations and movements within respect-
ing the Excise. There are many things plead strongly against it ; the un-
certainty of getting soon into business, the consequences of my follies, which
may perhaps make it impracticable for me to stay at home ; and besides,
I have for some time been pining under secret wretchedness, firom causes
LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS.
whidi you pretty well know — the pang of disappointment, the sting of
pride« with some wandering stabs of remorse, which never fail to settle on
my vitals, like vultwes, when attention is not called away by society, or
the vagaries of the muse. Even in the hour of social mirth, my gaiety is
the madness of an intoxicated criminal under the hands of the executioner.
All these reasons urge me to go abroad ; and to all these reasons I have
only one answer — the feelings of a father. This, in the present mood I am
in, overbalances every thing that can be laid in the scale against it.**
He proceeds to say, that he claims no right to complain. ** The world
has in general been kind to me, fully up to my deserts. I was for some
time past fast getting into the pining distrustful snarl of the misanthrope.
I taw myself alone, unfit for the struggle of life, shrinking at every rising
doud in the chance*directed atmosphere of fortune, while, all defenceless,
I looked about in vain for a cover. It never occurred to me, at least never
with the force it deserved, that this world is a busy scene, and man a crea-
ture destined for a progressive struggle ; and that, however I might pos-
sess a warm heart, and inoffensive manners, (which last, by the by, was
rather more than I could well boast), still, more than these passive quali-
ties, there was something to be dime. When all my schoolfellows and
yoatfaful compeers were striking off, with eager hope and earnest intent,
oo some one or other of the many paths of busy life, I was ** standing idle
zn the market-place,** or only lefl the chase of the butterfly from flower to
flower, to hunt fancy from whim to whim. You see. Sir, that if to know
one's errors, were a probability of me^iding them, I stand a fair chance ;
but, according to the reverend Westminster divines, though conviction
must precede conversion, it is very far from always implying it.**
In the midst of all the distresses of this period of suspense. Bums found
tune, as he tells Mr. Aiken, for some ^ vagaries of the muse ;*' and one or
two of these may deserve to be noticed here, as throwing light on his per-
sonal demeanour during this first summer of his fame. The poems appear-
ed in July, and one of the first persons of superior condition (Gilbert, in-
deed, says ^ first) who courted his acquaintance in consequence of having
read them, was Mrs. Stewart of Stair, a beautiful and accomplished lady*
Bums presented her on this occasion with some MSS. songs ; and among
the rset, with one in which her own charms were celdbrated in that warm
strain of compliment which our poet seems to have all along considered
tlie most proper to be used whenever this fair lady was to be addressed in
ihyme*
** Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green bnes,
Flow gently, 1*11 nng thee a song iq thy praise :
My Mary*B asleep by thy mnnnuring stxeam.
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.
How feasant thy banks and green valleys below,
M'here wild in tne woodlands the primroses blow ;
There oft, as mild evening sweeps orer the lea.
The sweet-foeflted birk shades my Mary and me.**
It was in the spring of the same year, that he happened, in the course
of an evening ramble on the banks of the Ayr, to meet with a young and
lovely unmarried lady, of the family of Alexander of Ballamyle, of whom,
it was said, her personal charms corresponded with the character of her
mind. The incident gave rise to a poem, of -which an account will be
found in the following Tetter to Miss Alexander^ the object of his inspira-
LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS.
<< Madam, Mossgid, 18M Nw. 1786.
« Poets are such outre beings, so much tlie children of wayward fancy
juid capricious whim, that I believe the world generally allows them a
larger latitude in the laws of propriety, than the sober sons of judgment
and prudence. I mention this as an apology for the liberties that a name-
less stranger has taken with you in the enclosed poem, which he begs leave
to present you with. Whether it has poetical merit any way worthy of the
theme> I am not the proper judge ; but it is the best my abilities can pro-
duce ; and what to a good heart will perhaps be a superior grace, it is
equally sincere as fer\'ent.
*< The scenery was nearly taken from real life, though I dare say. Ma-
dam, you do not recollect it, as I believe you scarcely noticed the poetic
rtveur as he wandered by you. I had roved out as chance directed in the
favourite haunts of my muse, on the banks of die Ayr, to view nature in
all the gaiety of the vernal year. The evening sun was flaming over the
distant western hills ; not a breath stirred the crimson opening blossom, or
the verdant spreading leaf. It was a golden moment for a poetic heart. I
listened to die feathered warblers, pouring their harmony on every hand,
with a congenial kindred regard, and frequently turned out of my path,
lest I should disturb their litde songs, or frighten them to another staUon.
Surely, said I to myself, he must be a wretch indeed, who, regardless of
your harmonious endeavour to please him, can eye your elusive flights to
discover your secret recesses, and to rob you of all the property nature
gives you, your dearest comforts, your helpless nesdings. Even the hoary
nawthom-twig that shot across the way, what heart at such a time but
must have been interested in its welfare, and wished it preserved from
the rudely-browsing catde, or the withering eastern blast ? Such was the
acene, and such the hour, when in a comer of my prospect, I spied one
of the fairest pieces of Nature's workmanship that ever crowned a poetic
landscape, or met a poet's eye, diose visionary bards excepted who hold
commerce with aerial beings ! Had Calumny and Villany taken my walk,
they had at that moment sworn eternal peace with such an object.
<* What an hour of inspiration for a poet ! It would have raised plain,
dull, historic prose into metaphor and measure.
*< The enclosed song was die work of my return home ; and perhaps it
but poorly answers what might be expected from such a scene.
" I have the honour to be," &c.
^^ *Twa8 even — the dwey fields were Kreen,
On every blade the peails hang ;*
The Zephyr wantonM round the oeam.
And bore its fragrant sweets alang ;
In every glen the mavis sang.
All nature listening seemM the while.
Except where green- wood echoes rang, .
Amang the braes o* BaUochmyle.
With careless step I onward strajed,
My heart r^iced in naturc*s joy,
When rousing in a lonely glade,
A maiden fair 1 chanc d to spy ;
Her look was like the morning s eye,
Her air like nature's vernal smile,
* Hang, Scotticism fox hung.
LIFE OF ROBERT BUANfk sti.
Perfection wbitpered paMUiff by,
Bdiold the lass o* BallocHmyle !*
Fair is the mom in flowery May,
And sweet b night in autumn mild-;
When rovins[ through the garden say,
Or wandenng in toe lonely wHd:
But woman, nature*s darling diild !
There all her charms she does compile t
£Ten there her other works are fo^M
By the bonny last o* BaUochmyle.
O had she been a country maid^
And I the happ^r country swam.
Though sheltered in the lowest died
That eter rose on Scotland's plain.
Through weary winter^s wind and ndn.
With iotr, with rapture, I would toil,
And nightly to ray bosom strain
The bonny lass o* BaUochmyle.
Then pride might climb the slipperjr steep,
Where fame and honours lofty smne ;
And thirst of gold might tempt the deep,
Or downward seek the Indian mine :
Oive me the cot below the pine.
To tend the flocks or till the soil.
And every day have joys dinne.
With tne bonny lass o* BaUochmyle.
The autumn of this eventful year was now drawing to a close, and Bums,
who bad already lingered three months in the hope, which he now consi*
dered vain» of an excise appointment, perceived that another year must be
lost altogether, unless he made up his mind, and secured his passage to
the West Indies. The Kilmarnock edition of his poems was, howeTer*
nearly exhausted ; and his friends encouraged him to produce anotlier al
the same place, with the view of equipping himself the better for the ne*
cessities of his voyage. But the printer at Kilmarnock would not under-
take the new impression unless Diirns advanced the price of the paper re«
quired for it ; and with this demand tlie poet had no means of complying.
Mr. Ballant}De, the chief magistrate of Ayr, (the same gentleman to whom
tlie poem on the Ttva Brigs of Ayr was aflcrwards inscribed), offered to
fumisli the money ; and probably tliis kind offer would have been accepted*
But, ere this matter could be arranged, the prospects of the poet were, in
a very unexpected manner, altered and improved.
Bums went to pay a parting visit to Dr. Laurie, minister of Loudouii»
a gentleman from whom, and his accomplished family, he had previously
received many kind attentions. After taking farewell of this benevolent
circle^ the poet proceeded, as the night was setting in, ** to convey hit
chest,** as he says, <* so far on Uie road to Greenock, where he was to em*
bark in a few days for America." And it was under these circurastancet
that he composed the song already referred to, which he meant as his faro*
well dirge to his native land, and which ends thus :—
•« FareweU. old Cotla*8 hills and dales.
Her heatny moors and winding vales.
The scenes where wretched fancy roves.
Pursuing past unhappy loves.
* Variation. The ]ily*8 hue and rose^s dye
Be»poki* the kics o* itollochmyle.
8
xlii LIFB OF ROBERT BURNS.
Farewdl, my friends ! farewell, my foes !
My peace with these — my love with those—
The bursting tears my heart dedare.
Farewell, the bonny banks of Ayr.'*
Dr. Laurie had given Bums much good counseli and what comfort he
could, at parting ; but prudently said nothing of an effort which he had
previously made in his behalf. He had sent a copy of the poems, with a
sketch of the author*s history, to his friend Dr. Thomas Blacklock of Edin-
burgh, with a request that he would introduce both to the notice of those
persons whose opinions Were at the time most listened to in regard to lite-
rary productions in Scotland, in the hope that, by their intervention. Burns
might yet be rescued from the necessity of expatriating himself. Dr.
Blacklock's answer reached Dr. Laurie a day or two after Bums had made
his visit, and composed his dirge ; and it was not yet too late. Laurie
forwarded it immediately to Mr. Gavin Hamilton, who carried it to Bums.
It is as follows : —
" I ought to have acknowledged your favour Ipng ago, not only as a tes-
timony of your kind remembrance, but as it gave me an opportunity of
sharing one of the finest, and perhaps one of the most genuine entertain-
ments of which the human mind is susceptible. A number of avocations
retarded my progress in reading the poems ; at last, however, I have finish-
ed that pleasing perusal. Many instances have I seen of Nature*s force or
beneficence exerted under numerous and formidable disadvantages ; but
none equal to that with which you have been kind enough to present me.
There is a pathos and delicacy in his serious poems, a vein of wit and hu-
mour in those of a more festive turn, which cannot be too much admired,
nor too warmly approved ; and I think I shall never open the book without
feeling my astonishment renewed and increased. It was my wish to have
expressed my approbation in verse ; but whether from declining life, or a
temporary depression of spirits, it is at present out of my power to accom-
plish that agreeable intention.
'* Mr. Stewart, Professor of Morals in this University, had formerly
read me three of the poems, and I had desired him to get my name in-
serted among the subscribers ; but whether this was done or not, I never
could learn. I have little intercourse with Dr. Blair, but will take care to
have the poems communicated to him by the intervention of some mutual
friend. It has been told me by a gentleman, to whom I showed the per-
formances, and who sought a copy with diligence and .ardour, that the
whole impression is already exhausted. It were, therefore, much to be
wished, for the sake of the young man, that a second edition, more nume-
rous than the former, could immediately be printed ; as it appears certain
that its intrinsic merit, and the exertions of the author's friends, might give
it a more universal circulation than any thing of the kind which has been
published in my memory.'*
We have already seen with what surprise and delight Bums read this
generous letter. Although he had ere this conversed with more than one
person of established literary reputation, and received from them atten-
tions, for which he was ever after grateful, — the despondency of his spirit
appears to have remained as dark as ever, up to the very hour when his land-
lord produced Dr. Blacklock's letter. — << There was never,*' Heron says,
** perhaps, one among all mankind whom you might more truly have called
an angel upon earth than Dr. Blacklock* He was guileless and innocent
1
1
LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. xUii
as a chfld, yet endowed with manly sagacity and penetration. His heart
was a perpetual spring of benignity. His feelings were all tremblingly
alive to the sense of the sublime, the beautiful, the tender, the pious, the
virtuous. Poetry was to liim the dear solace of perpetual bhndness." This
was not the man to act as Walpole did to Chattcrton ; to discourage with
feeble praise, and in order to shift off the trouble of future patronage, to
bid the poet relinquish poetry and mind his plough. — ** Dr. Blacklock,"
says Burns himself, <' belongea to a set of critics, for whose applause I had
not dared to hope. His opinion that I would meet with encouragement in
Edinburgh, fired me so much, that away I posted for that city, without a
single acquaintance, or a single letter of introduction. The baneful star
that had so long shed its blasting influence on my zenith, for once made a
revolution to the nadir."
CHAPTER V.
CovTlSTt.— 7^e P9d winiert im JBdinburgk, 1786-7— J9jr hit adMtO^ the WHtHtiim of thmi
cifyi LUtrary, Legal, Philomfphiealt Paiieiam, amd Pedamtie, it UfhUd up, mth^a mtUmr
'^iit it in At fil tidt of hitfamt thertt amd for a while earetttd kg the faJiemahli
Wkai hofpemt to him gtmeraOg in that new woHd, and kit hAavSonr under the narfing and
very trying circumetaneet — Tht tavern life then gready followed The Poet tempted beyond
ail firmer experience by bacehanalt of every degree — Hit convertationai taient mnivereatty
admitted^ at not the leatt of hie talentt — The Ladiet Khe to be carried off their feet by it^
while the phitoiophere hardly heep theirs — Edition of 1500 eopiee by Creech^ which yidde
nmeh money to the Poet — Retoivet to vieit the dauic tcenee of hit own conntry — Attailed
with thich'coming vitiont of a reflux to bear him bach to the region of poverty and tetiution.
'' Edina ! Scotia*! darling seat !
All hail thj palaces and tow*rt.
Where once beneath a monarches feet
Sat leginlation*! sovereign powers ;
. From marking wildly-acatterd flowers,
As on the banks of Ayr I strajM,
And singing, lone, the unffering hours,
I shelter m thy honour*a shade.**
Burns found several of his old Ayrshire acquaintances established in
Edinburgh, and, I suppose, felt himself constrained to give himself up
for a brief space to their society. He printed, however, without delay, a
prospectus of a second edition of his poems, and being introduced by
Mr. Dalryraple of Orangefield to tlie Earl of Glencaim, that amiable
nobleman easily persuaded Creech, then the chief bookseller in Edinburgh,
to undertake Uie publication. The Honourable Henry Erskine, Dean of
the Faculty of Advocates, the most agreeable of companions, and the most
benignant of wits, took him also, as the poet expresses it, '< unfder his
wing.'* The kind Blacklock received him with all the warmth of paternal
affection, and introduced him to Dr. Blair, and other eminent UteraU;
his subscription lists were soon ' filled ; Lord Glencaim made interest
with the Caledonian Hunt, (an association of the most distinguished
members of the northern aristocracy), to accept the dedication of the forth-
coming edition, and to subscribe individually for copies. Several noblemen,
especially of the west of Scotland, came forward with subscription-moneys
considerably b?ypnd the usual rate. In so small a capital, where every
body knows every body, that which becomes a favourite topic in one
leaaing circle of society, soon excites an universal interest ; and before
Bums had been a fortnight in Edinburgh, we find him writing to his
earliest patron, Gavin Hamilton, in these terms : — *< For my own affairs, I
am in a fair way of becoming as eminent as Thomas a Kempis or John Bun«
yan ; and you may expect hencefortli to see my birth-day incribed among
the wonderful events in the Poor Robin and Aberdeen Almanacks, along
with the Black Monday, and the Battle of Bothwell Bridge."
LIFB 0^ ROBBRt MRltO, tif
■
It Is but a melancholy busioess to trace among the records of literary
lilstory, the manner in which most {^eat original geniuses have been greet-
ed on their first appeals to the world, by the contemporary arbiters of
taste ; coldly and timidly indeed have the sympathies of professional criti-
cism flowed on most such occasions in past times and in the present i Rut
the reception of Bums was worthy of The Man of Feeling, Mr. Henry
Mackenzie was a man of genius, and of a polished, as well as a liberal taste.
After alluding to the provincial circulation and reputation of tlie first edi-
tion of the poems, Mr. Mackenzie thus wrote in the Lounger, an Edin-
burgh periodical of that period : — *< I hope I shall not be thought to assume
too much* if I endeavour to place him in a higher point of view, to call
for a verdict of his country on the merits of his works, and to claim fbr
bim those honours which their excellence appears to deserve. In men-
tioning the circumstance of his humble station, I mean not to rest his pre-
tentions solely on that title, or to urge the merits of his poetry, when con-
sidered in relation to the lowness of his birth, and the little opportunity of
improvement which his education could afford. These particulars, indeed,
must excite our wonder at his productions ; but his poetry, considered ab-
stractedly, and without the apologies arising from his situation, seems to
me fully entitled to command our feelings, and to obtain our applause."
After quoting various passages, in some of which his readers
^ must discover a high tone of feeling, and power, and energy of expres-
sion, particularly and strongly characteristic of the mind and the voice of
a poety" and others as shewing ** the power of genius, not less admirable
in tradng the manners, than in painting the passions, or in drawing the
scenery of nature,** and ** with what uncommon penetration and sagacity
thb beaven-taught ploughman, from his humble and unlettered condition,
had looked on men and manners,*' the critic concluded with an eloquent
appeal in behalf of the poet personally : " To repair,'* said he, " the wrong
or fuflMng or neglected merit ; to call forth genius from the obscurity in
whidi it had pined indignant, and place it where it may profit or delight
the world— 4liese are exertions which give to wealth an enviable superiori-
ty, to greatness and to patronage a laudable pride."*
The s^>peal thus made for such a candidate was not unattended to.
Bums was only a very short time in Edinburgh when he thus wrote to one
ef Us eariy fmnds : — *' I was, when first honoured with your notice, too
obicure ; now I tremble lest I should be ruined by being dragged too sud-
deply into the glare of polite and learned observation ;** and he concludes
the «me letter with an ominous prayer for <* better health and more spi-
rita.*'f — Two or three weeks later, we find him writing as follows s-»** ( Ja-
notry 14i 1787). I went to a Mason Lodge yesternight, where the M.W.
Grand Master Charteris, and all the (irand Lodge of Scotland visited. The
meeting was numerous and elegant : all the different lodges about town were
present in all their pomp. The Grand Master, who presided with great so-
lemnity, among other general toasts gave, ' Caledonia and Caledonu s bard,
Brother Bums, which rung through the whole assembly with multiplied
honoors and repeated acclamations. As I had no idea such a thing woidd
happen, I was downright thunderstruck ; and trembling in every nenrei
miHie the best return in my power. Just as I had finished, one of tha
* Ths leiiMrsi tat iatunlMr. DtsmlMr 9L 1786.
t Uast islpt twmtp^ 9i Apivknoi^ it, i/se ; RtttfMi, f* l%
riti Ltf E 01? ROIlEtlT BUnKS*-
Gtmid Officers said, so loud that I could hear, with a most comfbrting to-
oent, * very well indeed/ which set me something to rights again.?— And
a few weeks later still, he is thus addressed bjr one of his old associateg
who was mediuting a visit to Edinburgh. << ny all accounU, it will be a
difficult matter to get a sight of you at all, unless your company is bespoke
a week beforehand. There are great rumours here of your intimacy with
the Duchess of Gordon, and other ladies of distinction. I am really told
that —
*^ Cudi to invite, fly bj thousands each night ;**
•
and if you had one, there would also, I supoose, be < bribes for your old
aecretaiy.' I observe you are resolved to maJce hay while the sun shines,
and avoid, if possible, the fate of poor Ferguson. Qwerenda pectmia pri^
$mum eti^^Virtui post nummos, is a good maxim to thrive by. You seem-
ed to despise it while in tliis country ; but, probably, some philosophers
in Edinburgh have taught you better sense."
In this proud career, however, the popular idol needed no slave to whis-
per whence he had risen, and whither he was to return in the ebb of the
^ning-tide of fortune. His << prophetic soul** carried always a sufficient
. memento. He bore all his honours in a manner worthy of himself; ai!d
of this the testimonies are so numerous, that the only difficulty is that ot
selection. << The attentions he received," says Mr. Dugald Stewart, ** from
all ranks and descriptions of persons, were such as would have turned any
bead but his own. I cannot say that I could perceive any unfovourable effect
which they lefl on his mind. He retained the same sunplicity of manners
and a(^>earance which had struck me so forcibly when I £nt saw him in the
coun^ ; nor did he seem to feel any additional self-importance from the
number and rank of his new acquaintance." — Professor Walker, who met him
for the first time, early in the same season, at breakfast in Dr. Blacklock'a
house^ has thus recorded his impressions : — " I was not much struck with his
first appearance, as I had previously heard it described. His person, though
strong and well knit, and much superior to what might be eiqpected in a
pbughman, was still rather coarse in its outlme. His stature, from want
of setting up^, appeared to be only of the middle size, but was rather above
it. His motions were firm and decided, and though without any preten*
sions to grace, were at the same time so free from downish constraint, as
to show that he had not always been confined to the sodetpr of his prcifes-
skm. His countenance was not of that elegant cast, which is most f^
quent among the upper ranks, but it was manly and intelligent, and mariced
by a thoughtful gravity which shaded at times into sternness. In hb large
dark eye the most strUdng index of his genius resided. It was full of mind ;
and would have been singularly expressive, under the management of one
who could employ it with more art, for the purpose of expression. He
was plainly, but properly dressed, in a style mid-way between the holiday
costume m a fiurmer, and that of the company with which he now assod*
ated. His black hsir, without powder, at a time when it was very gene-
rally worn, was tied behind, and spread upon his forehead. Upon the
whde, from his person, physiognomy, and dress, had I met him near a sea-
port, and been required to guess his condition, I should have probably con-
jectured him to be the master of a merchant vessel of the most ren>ectable
class. In no part of his manner was there the slightest degree of affecta-
tion, tKyr oould a stranger have suspectedy firom any thing in his behaviour
Ltf £ OP fiOBERT BURNS. xlvii
Of cohversatioDy that he had been for some mondis the favourite of all the
fitthionable circles of a metropolis. In conversation he was powerfuL His
oooceptions and expression were of corresponding vigour, and on all subjects
were as remote as possible from common places. Tliough somewhat autho-
ritative, it was in a way which gave little offence, and was readily imputed
to his inexperience in those modes of smoothing dissent and soflening asser-
tion, which are important characteristics of polished manners. After break-
fast I requested him to communicate some of his unpublished pieces, asxi,
he recited his farewell song to the Banks of Ayr, introducing it with a des-
cription of the circum.<;tances in which it was composed, more striking than
the poem itself. I paid particular attention to his recitation, which was
plain, slow, articulate, and forcible, but without any eloquence or art. He
did not always lay the emphasis with propriety, nor did he humour the
sentiment by the variations of his voice. He was standing, during the time,
with his face towards the window, to which, and not to his auditors, he di-
rected his eye — thus depriving himself of any additional effect which the
language of his composition might have borrowed from the lang^uage of his
countenance. In this he resembled the generality of singers in ordinary
company, who, to shun any charge of affectation, withdraw all meaning
from their features, and lose tlie advantage by which vocal performers on
the stage augment the impression, and give energy to the sentiment of the
song. The day after my first introduction to Bums, I supped in company
with him at Dr. Blair*s. The other guests were very few, and as each-
had been invited chiefly to have an opportunity of meeting with the poet,
the Doctor endeavoured to draw him out, and to make him the central
figure of tlie group. Though he therefore furnished the greatest propor-
tion of the conversation, he did no more than what he saw evidently was
expected." •
To these reminiscences I shall now add those of one to whom is always
readily accorded the willing ear, Sir Walter Scott — He thus writes ^—
'< As for Bums, I may truly say, Virgilium vidi tanium. I was a lad of
fifteen in 1786-7, when he came first to Edinburgh, but had sense and
feeliog enough to be much interested in his poetry, and would have given
the world to know him ; but I had very little acquauitance with any lite-
jsry people, and still less with the gentry of the west country, the two
lets that he most frequented. Mr. Thomas Grierson was at that time
a clerk of my father's. He knew Burns, and promised to ask him to his
lodgings to dinner, but had no opportunity to keep his word ; otherwise I
might have seen more of this distinguished man. As it was, I saw him
one day at the late venerable Professor Fergusson*s, where there were se-
veral gentlemen of literary reputation, among whom I remember the cele-
brated Mr. Dugald Stewart Of course we youngsters sat silent, looked,
and listened. The only thing I remember which was remarkable in Bums*s
manner, waft the effect produced upon him by a print of Bimbury*s, re-
presenting a soldier lying dead on the snow, his dog sitting in misenr on
one side, — on the other, his widow, with a cliild in her arms. These Unet
were written beneath, —
'* Cold on Camtdian hills, or Minden*8 plain,
Perhaps that parent wept her soldier slain —
Bent o*er her babei her eye dissolved in dew,
The big drops, mingling with the milk He drew,
MtoiiiQQ*s Bum, ToL i pp. Izxi, Izzik
ilftti t\n OF RO&SRT BURKS.
I
nn^ve the mi\ presage ot \m future yearn,
The child of misery baptized in tears.'*
<* Bums seemed much affected by the print, or rather the ideas which
h suggested to his mind. He actually slicd tears. He asked whose the
lines were, and it chanced tliat nobody but myself remembered that they
occur in a half-forgotten poem of Langhorne's, called by the unpromising
title of The Justice of Peace. I whispere^ my information to a friend
present, who mentioned it to Burns, who rewarded me with a look and
a word, which, though of mere civility, I then received, and still recdllecti
with very great pleasure.
*< His person was strong and robust ; his manners rustic, not clownish ;
a sort of dignified plainness and simplicity, which received part of its ef-
fectt perhaps, from one's knowledge of his extraordinary talents. His
features are represented in Mr. Nasmyth's picture, but to me it conveys
the idea, that tney are. diminished as if seen in perspective. I think his
countenance was more massive than it looks in any of the portraits. I
would have taken the poet, had I not known what he was, for a very sa-
gacious country farmer of the old Scotch school, i. e. none of your modern
agriculturists, who keep labourers for their drudgery, but the douce gudt-
tiktm who held his own plough. There was a strong expression of sense and
shrewdness in all his lineaments; the eye alone, I think, indicated die
poetical character and temperament. It was large, and of a dark cast,
which glowed (1 say literally giowed) when he spoke with feeding or inte-
rest. I never saw such another eye in a human head, though I have seen
ihe most distinguished men of my time. His conversation expressed perfect
aelf-confidence, without the slightest presumption. Among the men who
were the most learned of their time and country, he expressed liimself
with perfect firmness, but without the least intrusive forwardness; and
when he differed in opinion, he did not hesitate to express it firmly, yet at
the same time with modesty. I do not remember any part of his conver-
sation distinctly enough to be quoted, nor did I ever see him again, except
in the street, where he did not recognise me, as I could not expect he
should. He was much caressed in Edinburgh, but (considering what lite-
rary emoluments have been since his day) the efforts made for his relief
were extremely triHing. I remember on this occasion I mention, I thought
Burns's acquaintance with English Poetry was rather limited, and also, that
having twenty times the abilities of AUan Kamsav and of Ferguson, he
tidked of them with too much humility as his models ; there was, doubt-
less, national predilection in his estimate, lliis is all I can tell you about
Bums. I have only to add, that his dress corresponded with his manner.
He was like a farmer dressed in his best to dine with the Laird. I do not
speak in malam partem^ when I say, I never saw a man in company with
his superiors in station and information, more perfectly free from either
the reality or the affectation of embarrassment. I was told, but did not
obsfrve it, that his address to females was extremely deferential, and al-
ways with a turn cither to the pathetic or humorous, which engaged their
attention particularly. 1 have heard the late Duchess of Gordon remark
this. — I do not know any tiling I can add to these recollections of forty
years since." —
There can be no doubt that Bums made his first appearance at a period
highly favourable for his reception as a British, and especially as a Scottish
poetf N^rljr fort^ ynx% had tiapsed since tbt death pf Thomson ;«-^
IJFS OF ROBERT BURNS. xlix
Colling, Gray, Goldsmith, had successively disappeared : — Dr. Johnson
had belied the rich promise of his early appearance, and confined him-
self to prose ; and Cowper had hardly begun to be recognized as having
anj considerable pretensions to fill the long-vacant throne in England. At
home — ^without derogation from the merits either of Douglcu or the 3fin*
Urtlf be it said — ^men must have gone back at least three centuries to find
a Scottish poet at all entitled to be considered as of that high order to which
the generous criticism of Mackenzie at once admitted ** the Ayrshire
Ploughman.** Of the form and garb of his composition, much, unquestion-
ably and avowedly, was derived from his more immediate predecessors*
Ramsay and Ferguson : but there was a bold mastery of hand in his pic-
turesque descriptions, to produce any thing equal to which it was neces-
sary to recall the days of ChrisCs Kirk on Vie Greeriy and Peebks to the
Pfay ; and in his more solemn pieces, a depth of Inspiration, and a massive
energy of language, to which the dialect of his country had been a stranger,
at least since '< Dunbar the Mackar.** The Muses of Scotland had never
indeed been silent ; and the ancient minstrelsy of the land, of which a slen-
der portion had as yet been committed to the safeguard of the press, was
handed from generation to generation, and preserved, in many a fragment,
faithful images of the peculiar tenderness, and peculiar humour, of the na-
tional fancy and character — precious representations, which Burns himself
never surpassed in his happiest efforts. But these were fragments ; and
with a scanty handful of exceptions, the best of them, at least of the seri-
ous kind, were very ancient. Among the numberless effusions of the
Jacobite Muse, valuable as we now consider them for the record of man-
ners and events. It would be difficult to point out half-a-dozen strains
worthy, for poetical excellence alone, of a place among the old chivalrous
ballads of the Southern, or even of the Highland Border. Generations had
passed away smce any Scottish poet had appealed to the sympathies of his
countrymen in a lofly Scottish strain.
The dialect itself had been hardly dealt wIUi. '* It is my opinion/* said
Dr. Geddes, « that those who, for almost a century past, have written in
Scotch, Allan Ramsay not excepted, have not duly discriminated the ge-
nuine idiom from its vulgarisms. They seem to have acted a similar part
to certain pretended imitators of Spenser and Milton, who fondly imagine
that they are copying from these great models, when they only mimic their
antique mode of spelling, their obsolete terms, and their irregular construc-
tions.** And although I cannot well guess what the doctor considered as
the irregular constructions of Milton, there can be no doubt of the general
justice of his observations. Ramsay and Ferguson were both men of hum-
ble condition, the latter of the meanest, the former of no very elegant
habits ; and the dialect which had once pleased the ears of kings, who
themselves did not disdain to display its powers and elegances in verse,
did not come untarnished through their hands. Ferguson, who was en-
tirely town-bred, smells more of the Cowgate than of the country ; and
pleasing as Ramsay's rustics are, he appears rather to have observed the
surface of rural manners, In casual excursions to Pennyculkand the Hun-
ter's Tryste, than to have expressed the results of intimate knowledge and
sympathy. His dialect was a somewhat incongruous mixture of the Upper
Ward of Lanarkshire and the Luckenbooths ; and he could neither write
English verses, nor engrafl English phraseology on his Scotch, without be-
(raying a lamentable want of sUU in the use of hi^ instrumental It was l^«
1 IIAI 01^ ROBERt BURIES.
denred for fiurnd to interpret the inmost soul of the Scottish peuant in aU
Its moods, and in verse exquisitely and intensely Scottish, without degrad-
ing either his sentiments or his language with one touch of vulgarity. Such is
the delicacy of native taste, and the power of a truly masculine genius. This
is the more remarkahle, when we consider that the dialect o£ Bums's na-
live district is, in all mouths but his own, a peculiarly offensive one. The
few poets * whom the west of Scotland had produced in the old time, were
all men of high condition ; and who, of course, used the language, not of
their own villages, hue of Holyrood. Their productions, moreover, in o
far as they have been produced, had nothing to do with the peculiar cha-
racter and feelings of the men of the west. As Burns himself has said, —
** It is somewhat singular, that in Lanark, Renfrew, Ayr, &c. there is
scarcely an old song or tune, which, from the title, &c. can be guessed to
belong to, or be the production of, those counties.*'
The history of Scottish literature, from the union of the crowns to that
of the kingdoms, has not yet been made the subject of any separate work
at all worthy of its importance ; nay, however much we are indebted to the
learned labours of Pinkerton, Irving, and others, enough of the general ob-
scurity of which Warton complained still continues, to the no small discre-
dit of so accomplished a nation. But how miserably the Uterahtre of the
country was affected by the loss of the court under whose immediate pa-
tronage it had, in almost all preceding times, found a measure of protec-
tion Uiat will ever do honour to the memory of the unfortunate house of
Stuart, appears to be indicated with sufficient plainness in the single fact»
that no man can point out any Scottish author of the first rank in all the
long period which intervened between Buchanan and Hume. The re-
moval of the chief nobility and gentry, consequent on the Legislative Union,
appeared to destroy our last hopes as a separate nation, possessing a se-
parate literature of our own ; nay, for a time, to have all but extinguished
the flame of intellectual exertion and ambition. Long torn and harassed
by religious and political feuds, this people had at last heard, as many be-
lieved, the sentence of irremediable degradation pronounced by the hps of
their own prince and parliament. The universal spirit of Scotland was
humbled ; the unhappy insurrections of 1715 and 1745 revealed the full
extent of her internal disunion ; and England took, in some respects, mer-
ciless advantage of the fallen.
Time, however, passed on ; and Scotland, recovering at last from the
blow which had stunned her energies, began to vindicate her pretensions*
in the only departments which had been lefl open to her, with a zeal and
a success which will ever distinguish one of the brightest pages of her his-
tory. Deprived of every national honour and distinction which it was pos-
sible to remove — all the high branches of external ambition lopped on, —
sunk at last, as men thought, effectually into a province, willing to take
law with passive submission, in letters as well as polity, from her powerful
sister — the old kingdom revived suddenly from her stupor, and once more
asserted her name in reclamations which England was compelled not only
to hear, but to applaud, and " wherewith all Europe rung from side to
side,** at the moment when a nsttional poet came forward to profit by the
reflux of a thousand half-forgotten sjrmpathies — amidst the full joy of a na-
tional pride revived and re-established beyond the dream of hope.
* Soch M Kennedy, Shaw, Montgomenr, and, more Utdy, HamdtOD of Oilbeitfidd.
LtF£ 01^ RObEftT BURf^ U
It #31 ilwAjri reflect honour on the galaxy of eminent then of letters*
li^, m their yarious departments, shed lustre at that period on the name
of Scotland, that they BufiPerect no pedantic prejudices to interfere with
their reception of Bums. Had he not appeared personally among theiyi,
it may be reasonably doubted whether this would have been so. They
were men, generally speaking, of very social habits ; living together in a
small ciqutfld ; nay, almost all of ilieir, ir: O-* about one street, maintaining
friendly intercourse continually ; not a few of them considerably addicted
to the pleasures which have been called, by way of excellence, I presume,
convivial. Bums*s poetry might have procured him access to these circles ;
bat it was the extraordmary resources he displayed in conversation, tlie
strong vigorous sagacity of his observations on life and manners, the splen-
dour of his wit, and the glowing energy of his eloquence when his feelings
were stirred, that made him the object of serious admiration among these
practised masters of the arts of talk. There were several of them who
probably adopted in their hearts the opinion of Newton, that " poetry is
ingenious nonsense." Adam Smith, for one, could have had no very ready
renpect at the service of such an unproductive labourer as a maker of Scot-
tish ballads ; but the stateliest of these philosophers had enough to do to
maintain the attitude of equality, when brought into personal contact with
Bums*s gigantic understanding ; and every one of them whose impressions
011 the subject have been recorded, agrees in pronouncing his conversation
to have b^n the most remarkable thing about him. And yet it is amus-
ing enough to trace the lingering reluctance of some of these polished scho-
lars, about admitting, even to themselves, in his absence, what it is cer-
tain they all felt sufficiently when they were actually in his presence. It
is difficult, for example, to read without a smile that letter of Mr. Dugald
Stewart, in which he describes himself and Mr. Alison as being surprised
to discover that Burns, afler reading the latter author's elegant Etsay am
TTatie^ had really been able to form some shrewd enough notion of the
general principles of the association of ideas.
Bums would probably have been more satisfied with himself in these
learned societies, had he been less addicted to giving free utterance in con-
versation to the very feelings which formed the noblest inspirations of hit
poetry. His sensibility was as tremblingly exquisite, as his sense was
masculine and solid ; and he seems to have ere long suspected that the pro-
fessional metaphysicians who applauded his rapturous bursts, surveyed them
in reality with something of die same feeling which may be supposed to
attend a skilful surgeon's inspection of a curious specimen of morbid ana-
tomy. Why should he lay his inmost heart thus open to dissectors, who
took special care to keep the knife from their own breasts ? The secret
blu^ that overspread his haughty countenance when such suggestions oc-
cured to him in his solitary hours, may be traced in the opening lines of a
diary which he began to keep ere he had been long in Edinburgh. *< April
9, 1787. — As I have seen a good deal of human lifeMn Edinburgh, a
great many characters which are new to one bred up in the shades of lifc»
aa I have been, I am determined to take down my remarks on the spot*
Gfay observes, in a letter to Mr. Palgrave, that, * half a word fixed, upon,
or near the spot, is worth a cart-load of recollection.' I don't know how
it ii with the world in general, but with me, making my remarks is by no
means a solitary pleasure. I want some one to laugh with me, some one
to be grave with me, some one to please me and help my discrimination.
Ut LIFE OP ROBERT BURNS.
with his or kef own f ematk, and at Umeti no doubt, to adnurt in;|r Aciite*
ness and penetration. The world are no buiied with selflth purgiiitfi am*
bition, vanity» interest, or pleasure, that very few think it worth their while
to make any observation on wliat passes around them, except where thai
observation is a sucker, or branch, of the darling plant they are rearing in
their fancy. Nor am I sure, notwithstanding all the sentimental flights of
novel-writers, and the sage philosophy of moralists, whether we are cap*>
aUe of so intimate and cordial a coalition of friendship, as that one man may
pour out his bosom, his every tliought and floating fancy* his very inmost
soul, with unreserved confidence, to another, without hazard of losing part
of that respect which man deserves from man ; or, from the unavoidable
imperfections attending human nature, of one day repenting his confidence*
For these reasons I am determined to make these pages my confidant.
I will sketch every character that any way strikes me, to the best of my
power, with unshrinking justice. I will insert anecdotes, and take down
i^marks, in the old law phrase, witkoui fiud or foffourm — ^Where I hit on
any thing clever, my own applause will, in some measure, fieast mv vanity;
and, beggping Patroclus' and Achates* pardon, I think a lock and key a se«
curity, at least equal to the bosom of any friend whatever.** And the same
hiridng thorn of suspicion peeps out elsewhere in this complaint : ** I know
not how it is ; I find I can win liking — but not respect'*
** Bums (says a great living poet, in commenting on the free style of Dr.
Currie) was a num of extraordinary genius, whose birth, education, and tm^
ptojrments had placed and kept him in a situation far below that in which the
writers and readers of expensive volumes are usually found. Critics upon
works of fiction have laid it down as a rule that remoteness of place, in
ixing the choice of a subject, and in prescribing the mode of treating it, is
equal in efiect to distance of time ^— restraints may be thrown off acoordU
kigly. Judge then of the delusions which artificud disUnctions imposop
when to a man like Dr. Currie, writing with views so honourable, tlui so-
cial condition of the individual of whom he was treating, could seem to
eoe him at such a distance from the exalted reader, that ceremony might
discarded with him, and his memory sacrificed, as it were, almost with-
•at compunction. This is indeed to be erushed beneath the furrow*8
w^ht**'* It would be idle to suppose that the feelings here ascribed, and
jttstly, no question, to the amiable and benevolent Currie, did not ollen
find their way into the bosoms of tliose persons of superior condition and
attainments, with whom Bums associated at the period when he first e*
merged into the blaze of reputation ; and what found its way into men's
bosoms was not likely to avoid betraying itself to the per^icadous glance
ef the proud peasant. How perpetually he was alive to the dread of being
looked down upon as a man, even by those who most zealously applandea
the works of his genius, might perhe^ps be traced through the whole se*
quence of his letters. When writing to men of liigh station, at least, he
preserves, in every instance, the attitude of self«defence. But it is only
in his own secret tables that we have the fibres of his heart laid bare ; and
the cancer of tliis jealousy is seen distinctly at its painful work : kabtmuM
fWMi et amfiimiem. ** There are few of the sore evils under the sun give
mm more uneasiness and chagrin than the comparison how a man of genius,
pMiy, of avowed worth, is received everywhere, with the recepita) fniich a
• lUfi iToi'SfwwiH*! ItHif It a Wfaa s» Bwuni^ ^ 1^
LIFB OP ROBERT BURKS. liil
mere ordinary character, decorated with the trappings and futile distinc'
tioDs ci fortune* meets. I imagine a man of abilities, his breast glowing
with honest pride, conscious that men are born equal, still giving honour
to whom honour is due ; he meets, at a great man's table, a Squire some^
thing, or a Sir somebody ; he knows the noble landlord, at heart, gives the
bardf or whatever he is, a share of his good wishes, beyond, perhaps, any
one at table ; yet how will it mortify him to see a fellow, whose abili-
ties would scarcely have made an eightpenny tailor, and whose heart is not
worth three fiirthings, meet with attention and notice, that are withheld
ftvim the son of genius and poverty ? The noble Glencaim has wounded
me to the soul here, because I dearly esteem, respect, and love him. He
showed so much attention— engrossing attention, one day, to the only
blockhead at table, (the whole company consisted of his lordship, dunder*
pstet and myself/, that I was within half a point of throwing down my gago
of contemptuous defiance ; but he shook my hand, and looked so benevo-
lently good at parting — God bless him ! though I should never see him
morei I shall love him until my dying day ! I am pleased to think I am so
capable of the throes of gratitude, as I am miserably deficient in some other
Yirtues. With Dr. Blair I am more at my ease. I never respect him with
humble veneration ; but when he kindly interests himself in my welfiu'e, or
ttHl more, when he descends from his pinnacle, and meets me on equal
pound in conversation, my heart overflows with what is called liking.
When he neglects me for the mere carcass of greatness, or when his eye
measures the difference of our points of elevation, I say to myself, with
icarcely any emotion, what do I care for him, or his pomp either ?'* << It
is not easy (says Bums) forming an exact judgment of any one ; but, in
my opinion, Dr. Blair is merely an astonishing proof of what industry and
application can do. Natural parts like his are frequently to be met with ;
his vanity is proverbially known among his own acquaintances ; but he is
justly at the head of what may be called fine writing, and a critic of the
firsty tlie very first rank in prose ; even in poetry a bard of nature's mak-
hig can only take the pass of him. He has a heart, not of the very finest
water, but far from being an ordinary one. In short, he is a truly worthy
and most respectable character/'
A nice speculator on the * follies of tlie wise,* DTsraeli, * says— '< Once
we were nearly receiving from the hand of genius the most curious sketches
of the tamper, the irascible humours, the delicacy of soul, even to its
shadowiness, from the warm sbozzot of Bums, when he began a diary of
his heart— a narrative of characters and events, and a chronology of his
emotions. It was natural for such a creature of sensation and passion to
project such a regular task, but quite impossible to get through it." This
BMiSt curious document, it is to be observed, has not yet been printed en-
tire. Another generation will, no doubt, see the whole o£ the confession ;
howevery what has already been given, it may be surmised, indicates suf-
ficiently the complexion of Burns*s prevailing moods during his moments
ef retirement at this interesting period of his history. It was in such a
BMiod (they recurred oflen enough) that he thus reproached ** Nature, par-
iWnatarer**
^^ Thoa gireit the ms his hide, the snail bis shell %
The iiiTeiioiii'd wasp Tietorious guards his ceU :
* D^Jntdi on the Literary Character, vol. i. p. 136.
liT LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS.
Bui, oh ! thoa bitter stepmother. Bud hard.
To thv poor ftncdflM naked child, the bard. .' .
In Dakea feeling and in achinc pride.
He bears the unbroken blaat trom erery side.*'
No blast pierced this haughty soul so sharply as the contumely of conde*
scension.
One of the poet's remarks, when he first came to Edinburgh, has been
handed down to us by Cromek. — It was, ** that between the men of rustic
life and the polite world he observed little difference — that in the former,
though mipolished by fashion and unenlightened by science, he had found
much observation, and much intelligence — but a refined and accomplished
woman was a thing almost new to him, and of which he had formed but a
very inadequate idea." To be pleased, is the old and the best receipt how
to please ; and there is abundant evidence that Bums's success, among the
high-bom ladies of Edinburgh, was much greater than among the ** stately
patricians," as he calls them, of his own sex. The vivid expression of one
of them has almost become proverbial — that she never met with a man,
" whose conversation so completely carried her off her feet," as Bums's.
The late Duchess of G6rdon, who was remarkable for her own conversa-
tional talent, as well as for her beauty and address, is supposed to be here
referred to. But even here, he was destined to feel ere long something of
the fickleness of fashion. He confessed to one of his old friends, ere the
season was over, that some who had caressed him the most zealously, no
longer seemed to know him, when he bowed in passing their carriages,
and many more acknowledged his salute but coldly.
It is but too true, that ere this season was over. Bums had formed con-
nexions in Edinburgh which could not have been regarded with much ap«
probation by the eminent literati, in whose society his debui had made so
powerful an impression. But how much of the blame, if serious blame»
indeed, there was in the matter, ought to attach to his own fastidious jea*
lousy — ^how much to the mere caprice of human favour, we have scanty
means of ascertaining : No doubt, both had their share ; and it is also suf-
ficiently apparent that there were many points in Burns*s conversational
habits which men, accustomed to the delicate observances of refined so"
ciety, might be more willing to tolerate under the first excitement of per--
sonal curiosity, than from any very deliberate estimate of the claims of such
a genius, under such circumstances developed. He by no means restricted
his sarcastic observations on those whom he encountered in the world to*
the confidence of his note-book ; but startled polite ears with tlie utterance
of audacious epigrams, far too witty not to obtain general circulation in so
small a society as that of the northern capital, far too bitter not to produce
deep resentment, far too numerous not to spread feaj: almost as widely as
admiration. Even when nothing was farther from his thoughts than to in-
flict pain, his ardour oflen carried him headlong into sad scrapes ; witness,
for example, the anecdote given by F*rofessor Walker, of his entering into
a long discussion of the merits of the popular preachers of the day, at the>
table of Dr. Blair, and enthusiastically avowing his low opinion of all the
rest in comparison with Dr. Blair*s own colleague* and most formidable >
rival — a man, certainly, endowed with extraordinary graces of voice and*
manner, a generous and amiable strain of feeling, and a copious flow of
language ; but having no pretensions either to the general accomplishmenta
• Or, Robert Walker.
LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. W
fyir which Blair was honoured in a most accomplished society, or to the
polished elegance which he first introduced into the eloquence of the Scot-
tish pulpit. Mr. Walker well describes the unpleasing effects of such an
taoapadt; the conversation during the rest of the evening, *< labouring un-
der that compulsory effort which was unavoidable, while the thoughts of
all were full of the only subject on which it was improper to speak." Burns
•bowed his good sense by making no effort to repair this blunder ; but years
afterwards, ne confessed that he could never recall it without exquisite
pain. Mr. Walker properly says, it did honour to Dr. Blair that his kind-
ness ' remained totally unaltered by this occurrence ; but the Professor
would have found nothing to admire in tliat circumstance, had he not been
well aware of the rarity of such good-nature among the gtnui irrUabile of
authors, orators, and wits.
A specimen (which some will think worse, some better) is thus recorded
by Cromek : — " At a private breakfast, in a literary circle of Edinburgh,
tbe conversatioil turned on the poetical merit and pathos of Grays Elegy,
a poem of which he was enthusiastically fond. A clergyman present, re-
markable for his love of paradox and for his eccentric notions upon every
subject, distinguished himself by an injudicious and ill-timed attack on this
exquisite poem, which Burns, with generous warmth for the reputation of
Gray, manfully defended. As the gentleman's remarks were rather gene-
ral than specific, Bums lu'ged him to bring forward the passages which he
thought exceptionable. He made several attempts to quote the poem, but
always in a blundering, inaccurate manner. Bums bore all this for a good
while with his usual good-natured forbearance, till at length,, goaded by
the fastidious criticisms and wretched quibblings of his opponent, he roused
himself, and with an eye flashing contempt and indignation, and with great
▼ehemence of gesticulation, he thus addressed the cold critic : — ' Sir, I now
perceive a man may be an excellent judge of poetry by square and rule»
and afler all be a d d blockhead.' " — Another of the instances may be
mentioned, which shew the poet's bluntness of manner, and how true the
remark aflerwards made by Mr. Ramsay is^ that in the game of society he
did not know when to play on or off. While the second edition of his Poems
was passing through the press. Bums was favoured with many critical sug-
gestions and amendments ; to one of which only he attended. Blair, read-
ing over with him, or hearing him recite (which he delighted at all times
hi doing) his Htily Fair^ stopped him at the stanza—
Now a* the congregation o*er
If tilent expectation.
For Rusad speelt the holj door
Wi* tidings o* Salvation, —
Nay, said the Doctor, read damnation. Bums improved the wit of this
Terse, undoubtedly, by adopting the emendation; but he gave another
strange specimen of want of tact^ when he insisted that Dr. Blair, one of
the most scrupulous observers of clerical propriety, should permit him to
acknowledge the obligation in a note.
But to pass from these trifles, it needs no effort of imagination to con-
ceive what the sensations of an isolated set of scholars (almost all either
clergymen or professors) must have been in the presence of this big-boned»
black-browed, brawny stranger, with his great flashing eyes, who, having
ibrced his way among them from the pbugh-tail at a single stridei mani-
Ki LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS.
fested, in the whole stninof his bearing and conversation, a most thorough
conviction, that, in the society of the most eminent men of his nation, he
was exactly where he was entitled to be ; hardly deigned to flatter them
by exhibiting even an occasional symptom of being flattered by their no-
tice ; by turns calmly measured himself against the most cultivated under-
standings of his time in discussion ; overpowered the ban mots of the most
celebrated convivialists by broad floods of merriment, impregnated with all
the burning life of genius ; astounded bosoms habitually enveloped in the
thrice-piled folds of social reserve, by compelling them to tremble — nay to
tremble visibly — beneath the fearless touch of natural pathos ; and all this
without indicating the smallest willingness to be ranked among those pro-
fessi<xEial ministers of excitement, who are content to be paid in money and
smiles for doing what the spectators and auditors would be ashamed of do-
ing in their own persons, even if they had the power of doing it ; and,—
last and probably worst of all, — who was known to be in the habit of en-
livening societies which they would have scorned to approach, still more
frequently than their owuy with eloquence no less magnificent ; with wit ia
all likelihood still more daring ; oflen enough, as tlie superiors whom he
fronted without alarm might have guessed from the beginning, and had^
ere long, no occasion to guess, with wit jx)inted at themselves.
The lawyers of Edinburgh, in whose wider circles Burns figured at hia
outset, with at least as much success as among the professional literati,
were a very different race of men from these ; tliey would neither, I take
it, have pardoned rudeness, nor been alarmed by wit. But being, in those
days, with scarcely an exception, members of the landed aristocracy of the
country, and forming by far the most influential body (as indeed they still
do) in the society of Scotland, they were, perhaps, as proud a set of men
as ever enjoyed the tranquil pleasures of unquestioned superiority. What
their haughtiness, as a body, was, may be guessed, when we know that in-
ferior birth was reckoned a fair and legitimate ground for excluding any
man firom the bar. In one remarkable instance, about this very time, a
man of very extraordinary talents and accomplishments was chiefly opposed
in a long and painful struggle for admission, and, in reality, for no reasons
but those I have been alluding to, by gentlemen who in the sequel stood
at the very head of the Whig party in Edinburgh ; * and the same aristo*
cratical prejudice has, within the memory of the present generation, kept
more persons of eminent qualifications in the background, for a season,
than any English reader would easily believe. To this body belonged
nineteen out of twenty of those " patricians," whose stateliness Bums so
long remembered and so bitterly resented. It might, perhaps, have been
well for him had stateliness been the worst fault of their manners. Wine-
bibbing appears to be in most regions a favourite indulgence with those
whose brains and lungs arc subjected to the severe exercises of legal study
and forensic practice. To this day, more traces of these old habits linger
about the inns of court than in any other section of London. In Dubliu
and Edinburgh, the barristers are even now eminently convival bodic« of
men ; but among the Scotch lawyers of the time of Bums, tlie principle of
jollity was indeed in its " high and palmy state." He partook largely iu
those tavern scenes of audacious hilarity, which then soothed, as a matter
* Mr. John Wild, son of a Tobacconist in the High Street, Edinburgh. lie came to be
Profeuor of Civil law in that University ; but, in the end, was also vi instance of unhtppv *
genliub
Lm OP ROttBT AUltHS. Ifrf
rfoouratt tht arid labomi of the iwtliem njlfcilg l» la ^rt^ The tat^ffr-
ttb it oonr-a-dtjc nearlj ettinct every wheM t but it WM then in fllll
vigour in Edinburgh, and there can be no doubt that Burns riipidly fluni-
limriaed hinuelf with it during liis residence. He had, after ill, tasted but
fwclr of ioch excesses while in Ayrshire. So little are we to considet
his Seoidk Drmk^ and other jovial strains of the early period, as conreyih#
any thing Uke a fiiir notion of his actual course of life, that ** Auld Nans?
Tinnock," or <' Poosie Nancie," the Mauchline landlady, is known to hatd
aspressed, amusingly enough, her surprise at the style in which she fbund
lier name celebrated in the Kilmarnock edition, saying, *< Aat RobM
Bums might be a very clever lad, but he certainly was rt^dhiif as, to tbi
best of her belief, he had never taken three half-mutchldns in her bOuse in
all his life.** And b addition to Gilbert's testimony to the same purpOsOi
we have on record that of Mr. Archibald Bruce, a gentleman of gfeat
worth and discernment, that he had observed Bums closely during that
period of his life, and seen him *< steadily resist such solicitations and al-
utfements to excessive convivial enjoyment, as hardly any othef person tauM
bttve withstood." — The tmfortunate Heron knew Burns well ; and himsetf
dikigled laigely in some of the scenes to which he adverts, in the following
atrang lang&ge i-^** The enticements of pleasure too often unman our vir^
tuous resolution, even while we wear the air of rejecting them with a sterti
iMTow. We resist, and resist, and resist ; but, at last, suddenly turn, and
passionately embtBce the encliantress. The Imcki of Edinbiurgh accoin<'
pliabed, in regard to Bums, that in which the boon of Ayrshire had fhiled«
After residing some months in Edinburgh, he began to estrange himself
not altogether, but in some measure, from graver friends. ToO many of
his hours were now spent at the tables of persons who delighted to urge
oonviviality to drunkenness— in the tavern — and in the brothel." It would
be idle mm to attempt passmg over these things in silence ; but it could
serve no good purpose to dwell on them. During thh winter , Bums con-
tinued to lodge with John Richmond, indeed, to share his bed ; and we
have the authority of this, one of the earliest and kindest friends of the
poet, fiir the statement, that while he did so, '* he kept good hours." He
removed afterwards to the house of Mr. William Nicoll, one of the teachers
of the High School of Edinburgh. Nicoll was a man of quick parts and
ooDsiderable learning — who had risen from a rank as humble as BumS*s i
from the beginning an enthusiastic admirer, and, ere long, a constant associ-
ate of the poet, and a most dangerous associate ; for, with a warm heart,
the man united an irascible temper, a contempt of the religious institutions
of bis country, and an occasional propensity for the bottle. Of NicoU'a
letters to Bums, and about him, I have seen many that have never been,
and probably that never will be, printed — cumbrous and pedantic eiHssions,
exhiwting nothing that one can imagine to have been pleasing to the poet«
except a rapturous admiration of his genius. This man, neveftheless, was^
I auapect, very fkr fh>m being an uiidfiivourable specimen of the society to
which Heron thus alludes :— '< He (the poet) iuffered himself to be sur* :
rounded bv a race of miserable beings, who were proud to tell that they
had been m company with Burns, and had seen Bums as loose and iss '
foolish as themselves. He was not yet irrecoverably lost to temperancO
aad modeiation ; but he was already almost too much captivated with their '
wanton revels, to be ever more won l)ack to a faithful attachment to their
more 6ot)er charms." Heron adds«-*'< He now also began to contract some*
10
Ifiii LIFE OP ROfiERT BURNS.
thing qf new arrogance in conyermtioiu Accustomed to be, among hit
fcYourite associates, what is vulgarly, but expressively called, the cock of
the company, he could scarcely refrain from indulging in similar freedom
and dictatorial decision of talk, even in the ^yresence of pers(ms who could
less patiently endure his presumption ;" * an account ex fade probable, and
which sufficiently tallies with some hints in Mr. Dugald Steiwt's descrip-
tion of the poet's manners, as he first observed him at Catrine, and with
one or two anecdotes already cited frx)m Walker and Cromek.
Of these failings, and indeed of all Bums's fieulings, it may be safely< as-
serted, that, there was more in his history to account and apologize for
them, than can be alleged in regard to almost any other great man's imper-
fections. We have seen, how, even in his earliest days, the strong thirst
of distinction glowed within him — ^how in his first and rudest rhymes he
•ung,
'* --^— to be great is chmrmiog ;**
and we have also seen, that the display of talent in conversation was the
first means of distinction that occurred to him. It was by that talent that
he first attracted notice among his fellow peasants, and after he mingled
with the first Scotsmen of his time, this talent was still that which appear-
ed the most astonishing of all he possessed. What wonder that he should
delight in exerting it where he could exert it the most freely — ^where there*
was no check upon a tongue that had been accustomed to revel in the li-
cense of village-mastery ? where every sally, however bold, was sure to be
received with triumphant applause — ^where there were no claims to rival
his no proud brows to convey rebuke, above all, perhaps, no grave eyes
to convey regret ?
But these, assuredly, were not the only feelings that influenced Bums :
In his own letters, written during his stay in Edinburgh, we hate the best
evidence to the contrary. He shrewdly suspected, from the very begin-
ning, that the personal notice of the great and the illustrious was not to be
as lasting as it was eager : he foresaw, that sooner or later he was destined
to revert to societies less elevated above the pretensions of his birth ; and,
though his jealous pride might induce him to record his suspicions in lan-
guage rather too strong than too weak, it is quite impossible to read what
he wrote- without believing, that a sincere distrust lay rankling at the roots
of his heart, all the while that he appeared to be surrounded with an at-
mosphere of joy and hope. On the loth of January 1787, we find him
thus addressing his kind patroness, Mrs. Dunlop : — •** You are afraid I shall
grow intoxicated with my prosperity as a poet. Alas ! Madam, I know
myself and the world too well. 1 do not mean any airs o€ affected modesty ;
I am willing to believe that my abilities deserved some notice ; but in a
most enlightened, informed age and nation, when poetry is and has been
the study oi men of the first natural genius, aided with all the powers of
polite learning, polite books, and polite company — to be dragged forth to
the full glare of learned and polite observation, with all my imperfections
of awkward rusticity, and crude unpolished ideas, on my head, — I assuro
you. Madam, I do not dissemble, when I tell you I tremble for the conse-
quences. The novelty of a poet in my obscure situation, without any of
those advantages which are reckoned necessary for that character, at least
* Heron, p. 28.
LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. Hk
at this time of day» has raised a partial tide of public notice, which has
borne me to a height where I am absolutely, feelingly certain, my abilitiea
ire.imidequate to support me ; and too surely do I see that time, when the
lame tide will leave me, and recede perhaps as far below the mark of
truth. ... I mention this once for all, to disburden my mind, and I
do not wish to hear or say any more about it. But — * When proud for-
tune's ebbing tide recedes,* you will bear me witness, that when my bubble
of fame was at the highest, I stood unintoxicated with the inebriating cup
in my hand, looking forward with rueful resolve." — And about the same
time, to Dr. Moore :— '* Tlie hope to be admired for ages is, in by far the
greater part of those even who are authors of repute, an onsubstantial
dream. For my part, my first ambition was, and still my strongest wish
is, to please my compeers, the rustic inmates of the hamlet, while ever-
changing language and manners shall allow nic to be relished and under-
stood. I am very willing to admit that I have some poetical abilities ; and
as few, if any writers, either moral or poetical, are intimately acquainted
with the classes of mankind among whom I have chiefly mingled, I may
have seen men and manners in a different phasis from what is conmion,
which may assist originality of thought I scorn the affecta-
tion of seeming modesty to cover self-conceit. That I have some merit, I
do not deny ; but I see, witli frequent wringings of heart, that the novelty
of my character, and the honest national prejudice of my countrymen, have
borne me to a height altogether untenable to my abilities.*' — And lastly^
April the 23d, 1787, we have the following passage in a letter also to Dr.
Moore : — " I leave Edinburgh in the course of ten days or a fortnight. I
shall return to my rural shades, in all likelihood never more to quit tlienu
I have formed many intimacies and friendships here, but I am afraid they are
all of too tender a construction to bear carriage a hundred and fifty miles.**
One word more on the subject which introduced these quotations : — Mr.,
rhigald Stewart, no doubt, hints at what was a common enough complaint
among the elegant literati of Edinburgh, when he alludes, in his letter to
Currie, to the " not very select society'* in which Burns indulged himself.
But two points still remain somewhat doubtful ; namely, whether, show,
and marvel of the season as he was, the << Ayrshire ploughman'* really had
it in his power to live always in society which Mr. Stewart would have con-
sidered as " very select 3" and secondly, whether, in so doing, he could
have failed to chill the affection of those humble Ayrshire friends, who, hav-
ing shared with him all that they possessed on his first arrival in the metro*
polis, faithfully and fondly adhered to him, after the springtide of fashion-
able favour «*id, as he foresaw it would do, " recede ;'* and, moreover, per-,
haps to provoke, among the higher circles themselves, criticisms more dis-
tasteful to his proud stomach, than any probable consequences of the course
of conduct which he actually pursued. The second edition of Burns's
poems was published early in March, by Creech ; there were no less than
J 500 subscribers, many of whom paid more than the shop-price of the vo-
lume. Although, therefore, the final settlement with the bookseller did not
take place till nearly a year after. Bums now found himself in possession
of a considerable sum of ready money ; and the first impulse of his mind
was to visit some of tlie classic scenes of Scottish history and romance. He
bad as yet seen but a small part of his own country, and this by no means
among the most interesting of her districts, until, indeed, his own poetry
made it equal, on that score, to any other. — " The oppellatiou of a Scottish
k LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. ,
iMUfd is by (kt my highest pride ; to continue to deserve It, is ray most ex«
•lied ambition. Scottish scenes, and Scottish story, are the themes I
ooiild wish to sing. I have no dearer aim than to have it in my power,
unplagued with the routine of business, for which, Heaven knows, I am
imfit enough, to make leisurely pilgrimages through Caledonia ; to sit on
the fields of her battles, to wander on the romantic banks of her rivers,
and to muse by the stately towers or venerable ruins, oqce the honoured
abodes of her heroes. But these are Utopian views." *
The magnificent scenery of the capital itself had filled him with extraor-
dinary delight. In the spring mornings, he walked very often to the top of
Arthur's Seat, and, lying prostrate on the turf, surveyed the rising of the
iun out of the sea, in silent admiration ; his chosen companion on such oc«
easions being that ardent lover of nature, and learned artist^ Mr. Alexander
Nasmyth. It was to this gentleman, equally devoted to the fine arts, as to
liberal opinions, that Bums sat for the portrait engraved to Creech's edi-
tion, and which is here repeated. Indeed, it has been so oflen repeated, and
has become so familiar, that to omit it now would be felt as a blank equal
almost to the leaving out of one of the principal poems. The poet*s dress
has also been chronicled, remarkably as he then appeared in the first h^v-
day of his reputation, — ^blue coat and buff vest, with blue stripes, (the
Whig-livery), very tight buckskin breeches, and tight jockey boots.
The Braid hills, to the south pf Edinburgh, were also among his favourite
morning walks ; and it was in some of these that Mr. Dugald Stewart tells
us, ** he charmed him still more by his private conversation than he had
ever done in company." " He was," adds the professor, " passionately fond
of the beauties of nature, and I recollect once he told me, when I was ad-
miring a distant prospect in one of our morning walks, that the sight of so
many smoking cottages gave a pleasure to his mind which none could un-
derstand who had not witnessed, like himself, the happiness and the worth
which they contained." Burns was far too busy with society and observa-
tion to find time for poetical composition, during his first residence in
Edinburgh. Creech's edition included some pieces of great merit, which
had not been previously printed ; but, with the exception of the Address to
Bdinbwrgh^ all of them appear to have been written before he lefl Ayrshire.
Several of them, indeed, were very early productions : Tlie most important
additions were, Deaili and Doctor Honiboohy The Brigs of Ayr, T/te Ordi"
nation^ and the Address to tfie unco Guid, In this edition also, When Guild'
fifd gtdd our pilot stood, made its first appearance.
The evening before he quitted Edinburgh, the poet addressed a let-
ter to Dr. Blair, in which, taking a most respectful farewell of him, and
expressing, in lively terras, his sense of gratitude for the kindness he had
shown him, he thus recurs to his own views of his own past and future con-
dition : ** I have oflen felt the embarrassment of my singular situation.
However the meter- like novelty of my appearance in the world might at-
tract notice, I knew vefy well, that my utmost merit was far unequal to
the task of preserving that character when once the novelty was over. I
have made up my mind, that abuse, or almost even neglect, will not sur-
prise rae in my quarters."
It ought not to be omitted, that our poet bestowed some of the first fruits
of Creech's edition in the erection of a decent tombstone over the hitherto
* Letter to JUis. DuDlop, Ddinburgh, 22d March 1787.
LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS.
Ixi
neglected remains of his unfortunate predecessor, Robert Ferguson, in the
Canongate churchyard. It seems also due to him here to insert his Address
to Edinburgh, — so graphic and comprehensive, — as the proper record of
the feelings engendered in his susceptible and grateful mind by the kind-
ness shown to him, in his long visit, and under which feelings he was now
about to quit it for a time.
ADDRESS TO EDINBURGH.
Em VA ! S^Wt dazfing seat !
An hail thv palaces and towers.
Where once ooieath a monarch's feet
Sat legislation's sovereign powers !
From marking wildly-scatterd flowers.
As OD the Mnks of Apr I stray*d.
And nnging, lone, the ungering hours,
I ilultar ra th j honourM shaae.
Here wealth still swells the golden tide,
As busy trade his laboura pli&i ;
There architecture's noble pride
Bids elegance and splenuour rise ;
Here justice, from her native skies.
High wields her balance and her rod ;
There learning, with his eagle eyes,
Seeks science in her coy abode.
Thy sons, Edina, social, kind.
With open arms the stranger hail ;
Their Tiews enlarged, their liberal mind,
Ahetft the linow, rural vale ;
Attentifie ct9I to sorrow's wail.
Or modest merit's silent claim $
And nefCK maj their sources fail !
And never envy blot their name.
Thr daughters bright thy walks adorn !
Gay as the gildea summer's sky.
Sweet as the dewy mil :^- white thorn.
Dear as die raptured thrill of joy !
Fair Burnet strikes th' adoring eye,
Hcav'a's beauties on my fancy shine :
I fee the sire of love on high^
And own Ms work inde^ divine !
There, watching hiffh the least alarma«
Thy rough rude fortress ^eams afar :
Like some bold vet'ran grey in arms.
And mark'd with many a seamy scar :
The pon'drous wall and massy bar,
Onm -rising o'er the rujjgea rock :
Have oft withstood assaihnff war.
And oft rcpeird th' invader's shock.
With awe-siruck thought and pitying teara.
I view (hat noble, stately dome,
Where Scotia* s kings of other yeurs.
Famed heroeii, had their royal home.
Alas ! how changed the times to come !
Their royal name low in the dust ;
Their hapless race wild-wand*ring roam !
Tbo* rigid law cries out, 'twas just !
Wild beats my heart to trace your steps,
M'*hose ancestors in days of yore.
Thro' hostile ranks and ruin'd gaps
Old ^cotia^s bloody Hon bote t
E'en / who sing in rustic lore,
Haply my sires have Uft their shed,
And faced grim danger's loudest roar.
Bold following where your fathers led !
Edtva ! Scoiia*s darling seat !
All hail thv palaces and tow'rs,
Where once beneath a monarch's feet
Sat legislation's sov'reign pow*rs !
From marking wildlv-scatter'd flowers,
As on the iMmks ot Ayr I stray 'd,
And singing, lone, the nng'ring nours,
I shelter m thy honour'd shade.
CHAPTER VI.
OMiTKMn. — Makes three teveral pilgrimagu in OxIedonia^^Lands from the Jtni of them^
aftet cm obfeiiee of$ix monthg, amonpit his friend* in the ** Amid Chy Biygiu" — FrW«
honour in his own country — Falls in with many hind friends during thcM j^tprUsagn^ amd
is familiar with the great, but never secures one effective patron — Aneedctu mnd SicteAct—
JJnpers in Ediuhuryh amidst the ftesltpots, winter 17B7-6 — Upset in a hackney eoaek^
which produces a bruiud iimb, and mournful musings for six weeks — Is enrolled in the £r-
eise — Another crisis, in which the Poet finds it necessary to implore even his friend Mro,
Jhinlop mot to destrt him — Grovels over his publisher, but after settling with him
JEdinburgh with £^00^^ Steps towards a more regular life.
*^ Ramsay and famous Fergusoii,
Gied Forth and Taj a lift aboon i
Yarrow and Tweed to monie a tune
Thro* Scotland rings,
M^ile Irvine, liu^ar, Ayr, and Xraoa,
Naebody sings.**
On the 6th of May, Bums left Edinburgh, in company with Mr. Robert
Atnslie, Writer to the Signet, the son of a proprietor in Berwickshire.—
Among other changes " which fleeting time procureth," this amiable gen-
tleman, whose youthful gaiety made him a chosen associate of Burns, is now
chiefly known as the author of some Manuals of Devotion. — They had
formed the design of perambulating the picturesque scenery of the south-
em border, and in particular of visiting the localities celebrated by the
old minstrels, of whose works Burns was a passionate admirer.
This was long before the time when those fields of Scottish romance were
to be made accessible to the curiosity of citizens by stage-coaches ; and
Bums and his friend performed their tour on horseback ; the former being
mounted on a favourite mare, whom he had named Jenny Geddes/ in ho-
nour of the good woman who threw her stool at the Dean of Edinburgh's
head on the 23d of July 1637, when the attempt was made to introduce a
Scottish Liturgy into the service of St. Giles's. The merits of the trusty
animal have been set forth by the poet in very expressive and humorous
terms, in a letter to his friend Nicoll while on the road, and which will be
found entire in the Correspondence. He writes : — " My auld ga*d gleyde
o* a mecre has huchyalled up hill and down brae, as teuch and birnie as a
Yera devil, wi* me. It's true she's as puir*s a sangmaker, and as hard's a
kirk, and lipper-laipers when she takes the gate, like a lady's gentlewoman
in a minuwae, or a hen on a het girdle ; but she's a yauld poutherin girron
for a' tha(. When ance her ringbanes and pavies, her cruiks and cramps,
are fairly soupled, she beets to, beets to, and aye the hindmost hour the
lightest," &c. &c.
Burns passed from Edinburgh to Berrywell, the residence of Mr. Ainslie's
family, and visited successively Dunse, Coldstream, Kelso, Fleurs, and the
niins of Roxburgh Castle, near n'hich a holly bush still marks the spot on
LtFS OF ROfi&Rt BUftKS. Ixiil
-Wtiich JaAMIII. df Scotland was killed by the bursting of a catmon. Jedburgh
—where he admired the " charming romantic situation of the town, with gar-
dens and orchards intermingled among the houses of a once magnificent ca-
■ thedral (abbey):" and was struck, (as in the other towns of the same district),
with the appearance of *< old rude grandure," and the idleness of decay ;
Melrose, *' that far-famed glorious ruin/* Selkirk, Ettrick, and the braes of
Yarrow. Having spent three' weeks in this district, of which it has been
justly said, ** tliat every field has its battle, and every rivulet its song,*'
Bums passed the Border, and visited Alnwick, Warkworth, Morpeth, New*
castle, Hexham, Wardrue, and Carlisle. He then turned northwards, and
rode by Annan and Dumfries to Dalswinton, where he examined Mr.
Millers property, and was so much pleased with the soil, and tlie terms
on which the landlord was willing to grant him a lease, that he resolved to
return again in the course of the summer.
The poet visited, in the course of his tour, Sir James Hall of Dunglas,
. author of the well -known Essay on GoUiic Architecture^ &c. ; Sir Alexander
and Lady Harriet Don, (sister to his patron. Lord Glencaim), at Newton-
Don ; Mr. Brydone, the author of Travels in Sicily ; the amiable and
learned Dr. Somerville of Jedburgh, the historian of Queen Anne, &c. ; and,
mB usual, recorded in his journal his impressions as to their manners and
characters. His reception was everywhere most flattering. The sketch
of his tour is a very brief one. It runs thus : —
«' Sajturday^ May 6. Left Edinburgh — Lammer-muir hills, miserably
cireanr in general, but at times very picturesque.
*' Lanson-edge, a glorious view of the Merse. Reach Benywell. . •
The family-meeting with my compagnon de voyage^ very charming ; parti-
cularly the sister.
*« Sunday. Went to church at Dunse. Heard Dr. Bowmaker.
** Monday. Coldstream — glorious river Tweed — clear and majestic^
'fine* bridge — dine at Coldstream with Mr. Ainslie and Mr. Foreman. Beat
Mr. Foreman in a dispute about Voltaire. Drink tea at Lennel-House with
Mr. and Mrs. Brydone. • • . Ueception extremely flattering. Sleep at
- Coldstream.
** Tuesday. Breakfast at Kelso — charming situation of the town — fine
bridge over the Tweed. Enchanting views and prospects on both sides of
the river, especially on the Scotch side. . . . Visit Roxburgh Palace
^— fine situation of it. Ruins of Roxburgh Castle — a holly bush growing
where James the Second was accidentally killed by the bursting of a can-
non. A small old religious ruin and a fine old garden planted by the reli-
gious, rooted out and destroyed by a Hottentot, a maitre d hotel of the
I>uke*s ! — Climate and soil of Berwickshire, and even Roxburghshire, su-
perior to A3rrshire — ^bad roads — turnip and sheep husbandry, their great
improvements. . . . Low markets, consequently low lands — magnifi-
cence of farmers and farm-houses. Come up the Teviot, and up the Jed
to Jedburgh, to lie, and so wish myself good night.
" Wedi^eaday. Breakfast with Mr. Fair. . . . Charming ronum'tic
situation of Jedburgh, with gardens and orchards, intermingled among the
houses and the ruins of a once magnificent cathedral. All the towns here
Lave the appearance of old rude grandeur, but extremely idle. — J^d, a fine
ranandc little river. Dined with Capt. Rutherford, . . . return to
Jedburgh. Walked up the Jed with some ladies to be shown Love-lane»
md Bhicldbmt two fiury scenes. Introduced to Mr. Potts, writer, and to
Ixiv Lll^E OP ROBEET fiORKS.
Mr. SomervilW, the clergyman of the parish, a maoi and a gtatUaum, Imt
aadly addicted to punning.
• ••••••••••«!
^ fy&wykf Saturdaif. Waa presented by the Magistrates with the fmt^
dom of the town. Took fiu^well of Jedburgh, with some melancholy sen-
sations.
** Mimitilf^ Ma^ 14, IUm. Dine with the fanner's club— all gentlemen
talking of lugh matters — each of them keeps a hunter fVom £§0 to £50
vakie, and attends the fox-hunting club in the country. Go oat widi Mr.
Ker, one of the dub, and a friend of Mr. Ainslie's, to sleep. In his mind
and manners, Mr. Ker is astonishingly like my dear old friend Robert Muir
— 'Every thing in his house elegant. He offers to accompany me hi my
English tour.
** Tuuday. Dine with Sir Alexander Don ; a very wet day. • . .
. Sleep at Mr. Ker*s again, and set out next day for Melrose — ^visit Dryburgh,
a fine old ruined abbey, by the way. Cross the Leader, and come up the
Tweed to Melrose. Dine there, and visit that far-famed glorious ruin —
Come to Selkirk up the banks of Ettrick. The whole country h^eabouts,
k#th on Tweed and Ettrick, remarkably stony."
He wrote no verses, as far as is known, during this tour, except a humor-
ous Epistle to his bookseller, Creech, dated l^lkirk, ISdi May. In this
he makes complimentary allusions to some of the men of letters who were
used to meet at breakfiut in Creech's apartments in those days— whence
the name of OieecA's Lme / and touches, too, briefly on some (^ the sce-
nery he had visited.
^ Up winpline ititely Tweed I*Te sped.
And Eden scenes on crysUlJed,
And Ettrick banks now raring ted.
While tempests Uaw.*!-*^
Bums returned to Mauchline on the 8th of July. It is pleasing to imagine
the delight with which he must have been received by tne ftmily after the
absence of six months, in which his fortunes and prospects had uadergoiie
so wonderfbl a change. He lefl them comparatively unknown, his tender-
est feelings torn and wounded by the behaviour of the Armours, and so
miserably poor, that he had been for some weeks obliged to skulk from the
Sheriff's cfficers, to avoid the payment of a paltry debt* He returned,
bis poetical fame established, the whole country ringmg with his praisesp
ftom a capital in which he was known to have formed the wonder and de-
Ugfat of tne polite and the learned ; if not rich, yet with more money al-
ready than anv of his kindred had ever hoped to see him possess, and with
prospects of future patronage and permanent elevation in. the scale of so-
ciety, whidi might have da^ied steadier eyes than those of maternal and
flraternal affection. The prophet had at last honour in his own country :
but the haughty spirit that had preserved its balance in Edinburgh, was
not likely to lose it at Mauchline ; and we have him writing firom Ms uM
ekfjf biggin on the 18th of June, in terms as strongly expressive as any
that ever came from his pen, of that jealous pride which formed the grouno-
work of his character ; that dark suspiciousness of fortune, which & sub*
aefuent course of his history too well justified ; that nervous intderance of
e^odescension, and consummate scorn of meanness, whid attended him
through Uie, and made the study oi his qpecjes, for which nature had gtvw
Irim liicli tstraordioiurjr ^ualificationi^ th^ wm% tf nMit |^ ItaM m|
X4PE OP ROBERT BURNS. Ut
0vtr couuiterbaiaDCed by the exquisite capacity far eDJoyment with which
he was also endowed. There are few of his letters in which more of the
dark traits <^ his spirit come to light than in the fi)llowing extract >^
^ I never^ my friend, thought mankind capable of any thing very gener
rous ; but the stateliness of the patricians of Edinburgh, and the servili^
of my plebeian brethren, (who, perhaps, formerly eyed me askance), since I
returned home, have nearly put me out of conceit altogether with my spe*
des. I have bought a pocket-Milton, which I carry perpetually about me^
in order to study the sentiments, the dauntless magnanimity, the intrepid
unjdelding independence, the desperate daring, and noble defiance of hardr
ship, in that great personage — Satan. . . . The many ties of acquaintance
and friendship I have, or think I have, in life — I have felt along the lines,
and, d — n them, they are almost all of them of such frail texture, that I
am sure they would not stand the breath of the least adverse breeze of
fortune/*
Among those who now appeared sufficiently ready to oourt his society,
were the family of Jean Armour. Bums's regard for this affectionate young
woman had outlived his resentment of her father's disavowal of him in the
preceding summer ; and from the time of this reconciliation, it is probable
he looked forward to a permanent union with the mother of his children.
Burns at least fancied himself to be busy with serious plans for his fu-
ture establishment ; and was very naturally disposed to avail himself, as far
as he could, of the opportunities of travel and observation, which an inter-
val of leisure might present. Moreover, in spite of his gloomy language, a
specimen of which has just been quoted, we are not to doubt that he de-
rived much pleasure from witnessing the extensive popularity of his writ-
ings, and from the flattering homage he was sure to receive in his own per-
son, in the various districts of his native country ; nor can any one wonder
that, after the state of high excitement in which he liad spent the winter
and spring, he, fond as he was of his family, and eager to make them par-
takers in all his good fortune, should have, just at this time, found himself
incapable of sitting down contentedly for any considerable period together,
in so humble and quiet a circle as that of Mossgiel. His appetite for wan-
deriAg appears to have been only sharpened by his Border excursion. Afler
remaining a few days at home, he returned to Edinburgh, and thence pro-
ceeded on aootlier short tour, by way of Stirling, to Inverary, and so back
rngBoOf by Dumbarton and Glasgow, to Mauchline. Of this second excur-
iMon, no journal has been discovered ; nor do the extracts from his corres-
pondence, printed by Dr. Curric, appear to be worthy of much notice. Ja
one, he briefly describes the West Highlands as a country *' where savage
streams tumble over savage mountains, thinly overspread with savage flocks,
which starvingly support as savage inhabitants :*' and in another, he gives
an account of Jenny Geddes running a race after dinner with a Highlander's
pony — of his dancing and drinking till sunrise at a gentleman's house on
Loch Lomond ; and of other simikir matters. — ** I have as yet," says he,
^< fixed on nothing with respect to the serious business of life. I am, just
as usual, a rhyming, mason-making, raking, aimless, idle fellow. However,
I dudl aomewhere have a fium soon."
In the course of this tour, Bums visited the motlier and sisters of his
fiicnd, Gavin' Hamilton, then residing at Harvieston, in ClackmannanshireB
m the immfidiatP neighbourhood of the magnificent scenery of Castle Camp-
Hiiiijpj Ihg nti^ of Derw, Caatle Cai»pb^ called otberwtst ^ml Cbilil
kM tML OF ftOflSRT fiUtlHl
^Gloom^ ii grandly situated in a gorge of the Ochilli, cohitnihding ii
extensive view ci Uie plain of Stirling. This ancie&t possession of the
Argyll fiunily was» in sonw sortt a town-residence of those chieftains in the
dajrs when Uie court was usually held at Stirling, Linlithgow, or Falkland.
The castle was humt hy Mcmtrose, and has never heen repaired. The
Cauldnm Linn and EumbUng Brigg of the Devon lie near Castle Camp*
bellf on the verge of the plaLi. He was especially delighted with one of
the young ladies ; and, according to his usual custom, celebrated her in
• song, in which, in opposition to his general custom, there is nothing but
the respectfulness of admiration.
How fdeuant the baaka of tbe datf-winding Doron,
With green ipreoding buihct, and flowers blooming finr |
But the bonniest flower on the banks of the Devon
Wu onoe m sweet bud on the braes of the Ayr.
Mild be the son on this sweet bloshing flower.
In the gaj roinr mom as it bathes in the dew!
And gentle the nil of the soft vcmal shower.
That steals on the evening each leaf to renew.
O spare the dear blossom, je orient breezes.
With diill hoarjr wing as je usher the dawn t
And hi be thou distant, thou reptile that seises
The Terdure and pride of the garden^and lawn !
Let Bourbon exult in his gaj gilded lilies.
And England triumphant di^>laj her proud rose f
. A fiurer than either adorns the green Valleys,
Where Devon, sweet Devon, meandering flows.
At Harviestonbank, also, the poet first became acquainted with Miss
Chalmers, afterwards Mrs. Hay, to whom one of the most interesting se-
ries of his letters is addressed. Indeed, with the exception of his letters to
Mrs. Dunlop, there is, perhaps, no part of his correspondence which may
be quoted so uniformly to his honour. It was on this expedition that,
haying been visited wiUi a high flow of Jacobite indignation while viewing
the neglected palace at Stirling, he was imprudent enough to write some
verses bitterly vituperative of the reigning family on the window ci his
inn. These verses were copied and talked of; and although the next time
Bums passed through Stirlmg, he himself brdce the pane' of glass contain-
ing them, they were remembered years afterwards to his disadvantage, and
even danger. — As these verses have never appeared in any edition of his
works hi&erto puUished in Britain, we present them to our readars iM m
literary curiosity.
Here onee in triumph Stuarts reisn'd, '
And laws for Scotia weU ordain*d ;
But now unroof *d their palace stands ;
Their soqicrc*8 swaj'd bj other hands.
I
The ii^jured Stuart line is gone,
A race outlandish filla the tnnme ;—
An idiot race, to honour lost,
Who know them best,' despise them most*
The young ladies of Harvieston were, according to Dr. Currie, surprised
with the calm manner in which Bums contemplated their fine scenery on
Devon water; and the Doctor enters into a little dissertation on the si^ecty
showing that a man of Bums's lively imagination might probably have rorm-
#d antkipaliom which the xealitiii^oft& prospect mi^tntberdiaappgial*
4
LI^£ OF ROBERT tVRlia. Ixtii
TUt is possible enough ; but I suppose few will take it for granted that
Burns surveyed ai^ scenes either oif beauty or of grandeur without emo-
tion, merely because he did not choose to be ecstatic for the benefit of a
company of young ladies. He was indeed very impatient of interrtqption
on such occasions : riding one dark night near Carron» his companion teased
him with noisy exclamations of delight and wonder, whenever an opening
in the wood permitted them to see tlie magnificent glare of the furnaces ;
*' Look, Bums ! Good Heaven ! look ! look ! what a glorious sight !*' —
** Sir," said Bums, clapping spurs to Jenny Geddcs, " I would not look !
look f 'at your bidding, if it were tlie moutli of hell !"
Bums ^ent the month of July at Mossgiel ; and Mr. Dugald Stewart,
in a letter to Currie, gives some recollections of him as he then appeared :
— '< Notwithstanding the various reports I heard during the preceding win-
tcr of Bums's predilection for convivial, and not very select society, I
should have concluded in favour of his habits of sobriety, from all of him
that ever fell under my own observation. He told me indeed himself, that
the weakness of his stomach was such as to deprive him entirely of any
merit ih his temperance. I was, however, somewhat alarmed about the
effect of his now comparatively sedentary and luxurious life, when he con-
fessed to me, the first night he spent in my house af\cr his winter's cam-
paign in town, that he had been much disturbed when in bed, by a palpi-
tation at his heart, which, he said, was a complaint to which he had of late
become subject. In the course of the same season I was led by curiosity
to attend for an hour or two a Masonic Lodge in Mauchline, where Bums
presided. He had occasion to make some short unpremeditated com-
pliments to different individuals from whom he had no reason to expect a
visit, and every thing he said was happily conceived, and forcibly as well
an fluently expressed. His manner of speaking in public had evidently the
marks of some practice in extempore elocution.'*
In August, Hums revisited Stirlingshire, in company with Dr. Adair, of
Harrowgate, and remained ten days at Harvieston. He was received with
particulsur kindness at Ochtert3n-e, on the Teith, by Mr. Ramsay (a friend
of Blacklock), whose beautiful retreat he enthusiastically admired. His
host was among the last of those old Scottish Latinisis who began with Bu-
chanan. Mr. Ramsay, among other eccentricities, had sprinkled the walla
of his house witli Latin inscriptions, some of them highly elegant ; and
these particularly interested Bums, who asked and obtained copies and
translations of them. This amiable man (another Monkbams) was deaply
read in Scottish antiquities, and the author of some learned essays on the
elder poetry of his country. His conversation must have delighted any
man of talents ; and Bums and he were mutually charmed with each other.
Ramsay advised him strongly to turn his attention to the romantic drama,
and proposed the Crentk Shq)herd as a model : he also urged him to write
SeoUith Georgia^ observing that Thomson had by no means exhausted that
field. He appears to have relished both hints. " But," says Mr. R. << to
have executed either plan, steadiness and abstraction firom company were
wanting." — Mr. Ramsay thus writes of Bums : — *' I have been in the com-
pany of many men of genius, some of them poets ; but I never witnessed
such flashes of intellectual brightness as from him, the impulse of the mo-
ment, ^wrks of celestial fire. I never was more delighted, therefore, than
with his company two days t^te-a-t^te. In a mixed company I should have
made little of him; for, to use a gamester's phrase, he did not always know
Ixviu LIf £ OF ROE£RT fiUANS.
when to play off and when to play on. 'W^hen I asked him whether tht
Edinburgh literati had mended his poems by their criticisms-—' Sir/ laid
hcy ' those gentlemen remind me of some spinsters in my country, who spin
their thread so fine that it h neither fit for weft nor woof.' "
At Clackmannan Tower, the Poet*f jacobitism procured him a hearty
welcome from the ancient lady of the place, who gloried in considering
herself a lineal descendant of Robert Bruce. She bestowed on Bums knight*
hood with the touch of the hero*s sword ; and delighted him by giving as
|ier toast after dinner, Hopki uncotf away strangers ! — a she^erd'i cry
when strange sheep mingle in the flock. At Dunfermline the poet betray*
ed deep emotion, Dr. Adair tells us, on seeing the grave of the Bruce ; but,
passing to another moqd on entering the adjoining church, he mounted the
pulpit, and addressed his companions, who had, at his desire, ascended the
euityMiool^ in a parody of the rebuke which he had himself undergone some
time before at Mauchline. From Dunfermline the poet crossed the Frith rf
Forth to Edinburgh ; and forthwith set out with his friend Nicoll on a more
extensive tour than he had as yet undertaken, or was ever again to under-
take. Some fragments of his journal have recently been discovered, and
are now in my hands ; so that I may hope to add some interesting particu*
lars to the accout of Dr. Currie. The travellers hired a post-chaiae io€
their expedition — the schoolmaster being, probably, no very skilful equet*
trian.
** August 25th, 1787.— This day," says Bums, << I leave Edinburgh lor
a tour, in company with my good friend, Mr. Nicoll, whose originaH^ of
humour promises me much entertainment — lAnUtkffow* — A fertDe im-
proved country is West Lothian. The more elegance and luxury among
the fanners, I always observe, in equal proportion, the rudeness and stupi-
dity of the peasantry. This remark 1 have made all over the Lothians,
Merse, Roxburgh, &c. ; and for this, among other reasons, I think that 8
man of romantic taste, ' a man of feeling,' will be better' pleased with the
poverty, but intelligent minds of the peasantry of Ayrshire, (peasantry they
yre all, below the Justice of Peace), than the opulence of a club of Merse
fiurmers, when he, at tlie same time, considers the VandaKsm of their plough-
folks, &c. I carry this idea so far, that an uninclosed, unimpiroved coun-
try is to me actually more agreeable as a prospect, than ^ country culti-
vated like a garden."
It was hardly to be expected that Robert Bums should have estimated
the wealth of nations on the principles of a political economist ; or that
with him the greatest possible produce,— no matter how derived,— -was to
be the paramount principle. But, where the greatness and hamtiness of «
people are concerned, perhaps the inspirations of the poet may be as safely
taken for a guide as the inductions of the political economist :«-
From loeiiet like tbete old Scotia** grandeur iptinaii
That makes her k>ved at home, revered abroad :
Prinoei and lords are hut the breadi of kiiun, '
^^ An honest man's the noblest work of Oos I**
And cerU*^ in fair virtue's heav*nl]r road.
The cottage leaves the palace nr behind ;
What is a lordHng's pomp I a eumbrous IomU
Oisipiinng bft the wretch of human Idni,
Studied m arts of hell, in wickedness refined;
O Scotia ! my dear, my native soil I
For whonr mr warmest widi to Heaven n icnt ^
l/Hm may thy hardy was of lunk toU,
^ bkn wrtb bcsi|h| sad ptMs, ssa iwsK cMMBt I .
UFB OF ROBERT BURNS. Izix
AbA, O ! wmf HeftT*ii their rimple Mrtt prevent
Fmn haxvajH oontagkNi, weik and tuc !
HmO) howe'er crowns and cortmttt be rent,
A vlirfwni* populace miy rise the while,
AtA tCaad a wall of fire anmnd their macfa»loved Itfe,
Of Tinltthgpff the poet sap, " the town carries the appearance of rude,
decftjedy idle grandeur— charmingly rural retired situation — the old Rojal
Fkkee a tolerably fine but melancholy ruin — sweetly situated by the bnnk
of A loch* Shown the room where the beautifiil ujured Mary Queen of
Seots was bom* A pretty good old Gothic church — the infamous stool of
repentance, in the old Romish way, on a lofly situation. What a poor
pimping bnsineas is a Presbyterian place of worship ; dirty, narrow, and
aqoalid* studc in a comer of old Popish grandeur, such as Linlithgow^ and
BMch more Melrose ! Ceremony and show, if judiciously tlirown in, are ab-
aoliitely necessary ibr the bulk of mankind, both in religious and ciril mat-
ten "
At Bannockbura he writes as follows : — ** Here no Scot can pass unin-
tcreated. I fancy to myself that I see my gallant countrymen coming over
the hil), and down upon the plunderers of their country, the murderers of
their ftthers, noble, revenge and just hate glowing in every vein, striding
more and iqore eagerly as they approach the oppressive, insulting, blood-
Mnty fbe« I see them meet in glorious triumphant congratulation on the
Yictorious field, exulting in their heroic royal leader, and rescued liberty
and indqpendence."—- Here we have the germ of Bums*8 famous ode on the
battle Of Bannockbum.
At Tajrmouth, the Journal merely has — *' described in rhyme,^ This al«
Ittdet to the << verses written with a pencil over the mantle-piece of the
partcKir in the inn at Kenmorc ;'* some of which arc among his best purely
Engliih heroics —
^ Poetic ardours in my 1)Osom kwcII,
I^ne wanderin^r by the hennit*8 mossy cell ;
The Rweeping theatre of hanging woods ;
The inceeiant roar of headlong-tumbling floods ....
Here Pbesy might wake her heaven-uuffht lyre.
And took through nature with creatiTe fire ....
Here, to the wrongs of ^te half reconciled.
Misfortune's lighten*d steps might wander wild ;
And Disappointment, in these lonely bounds,
Find balm to soothe her bitter rankung woundn :
Here heart-struck Orief might heayenward stretch her scan.
And injured Worth forget and pardon man.**
Of Glenlyon we Iiave this memorandum : — " Druids' temple, three cir-
dea of stones, the outermost sunk, the second has thirteen stones remain-
ing, the innermost eight ; two large detached ones like a gate to the south-
east— way prayen (mil"
His notes on Dunkeld and Blair of Athole are as follows : — << DutikM
—Breakfast with Dr. Stuart — ^Neil Gow plays ; a sliort, stout-built. High-
land figure, with his greyish hair shed on his honest social brow — an inte-
resting fiu^e, narking strong sense, kind openheartedness mixed with
unmittrusting simplicity — ^visit his house — Margaret Gow. — Friday —
ride up Tummel river to Blair. Fascally, a beautiful roniantic nest— wild
* of the pass of Killikrankie — ^visit the gallant Lord Dimdee*s stone,
-^up with the Duchess— easy and happy from the manners of
that fimily— confirmed in my good opinion of mv friend Walker.-*iSSBiter«
dbgH-Titit the scenes round Blair — fine, but spoilt with bad taste."
LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS.
Mr. Walker, who, as we have seen, formed Burns's acquaintance in
Edinburgh through Blacklock, was at this period tutor in the family of
Athole, and from him the following particulars of Bums's reception at the
leat of his noble patron are derived : — << On reaching Blair, he sent me no-
tice of his arrival (as I had been previously acquainted with him), and I
hastened to meet him at the inn. The Duke, to whom he brought a letter
of introduction, was from home ; but the Duchess, being informed of his ar«
rival, gave him an invitation to sup and sleep at Athole House. He ac«
oepted the invitation ; but, as the hour of supper was at some distance,
begged I would in the interval be his guide through the grounds. It waa
afaready growing dark ; yet the softened, though faint and uncertain, view
of their beauties, which die moonlight afforded us, seemed exactly suited
to the state of his feelings at the time. I had oflen, like others, experienced
the pleasures which arise from the sublime or elegant landscape, but I ne-
ver saw those feelings so intense as in Burns. When we reached a rustic .
hut on the river Tilt, where it is overhimg by a woody precipice, from
which there is a noble water-fall, he threw himself on the heathy seat,
and gave himself up to a tender, abstracted, and voluptuous enthusiasm of
imagination. It was with much difficulty I prevailed on him ^ qtdt thia
spot, and to be introduced in proper time to supper. My curiosity was
great to see how he would conduct himself in company so different from
what he had been accustomed to. His manner was unembarrassed, plain,
and firm. He appeared to have complete reliance on his own native good
sense for directing his j}ehaviour. He seemed at once to perceive and to
appreciate what was due to the company and to himself, and never to for-
get a proper respect for the separate species of dignity bebnging to each*
He did not arrogate conversation, but, when led into it, he spoke with ease,
propriety, and manliness. He tried to exert his nihilities, because he knew
it was ability alone gave him a title to be there. The Duke's fine young
family attracted much of his admiration ; he drank their healths as hanut
men and honnie lasses^ an idea which was much applauded by the company,
and with which he has very felicitously closed his poem. Next day I took
a ride with him through some of the most romantic parts of that neigh-
bourhood, and was highly gratified by his conversation. ' As a specimen
of his happiness of conception and strength of expression, I will meation a
remark which he made on liis fellow-traveller, who was walking at tlie time
a few paces before us. He was a man of a robust but clumsy person ; and
while Bums was expressing to me the value he entertained for him, on
account of his vigorous talents, although they were clouded at times by
coarseness of manners ; ^* in short," he added, << his mind is like his body»
he has a confounded strong in>-knee'd sort of a soul."— -Much attention was
paid to Bums both before and after the Duke's return, of which he was
perfectly sensible, witliout being vain ; and at his departure I recommended
to him, as the most appropriate return he could make, to write some des-
criptive verses on any of the scenes with which he had been so much de-
]u;hted« After leaving Blair, he, by the Duke's advice, visited the FaUt rf
Mruar^ and in a few days I received a letter from Inverness, with the verset
enclosed." *
At Blair, Bums first met with Mr. Graham of Fintray, a gentleman to
whose kindness he was afterwards indebted on more than one important
* Extract of a letter from Mr. Walkei:to Mr. Cuimingluun, dated Perth. 34th October^
LinS OF ROBERT BURNS* bcxi
occasion ; and Mr. Walker expresses great regret that he did not remain
a day or two more, in which case he must have been introduced to Mr.
Dmidas, the first Lord Melville, who was then Treasurer of the Navy, and
had the chief management of the afiairs of Scotland This statesman was
but little addicted to literature; still, had such an introduction taken
place, he might probably have been induced to bestow that consideration
on the claims of the poet, which, in the absence of any personal acquain-
tance, Bums's works should have commanded at his himds.
From Blair, Bums passed ** many miles through a wild country, among
diflb grey with eternal snows, and gloomy savage glens, till he crossed the
Spey ; and went down the stream dirough Strathspey, (so famous in Scot«
liih music), Badenoch, &c. to Grant Castle, where he spent half a day with
Sir James Grant ; crossed the country to fort George, but called by the
way at Cawdor, the ancient seat of Macbetli, whpre he saw the identical
bed in which, tradUion taysy King Duncan was murdered ; lastly, from Fort
George to Inverness. From Inverness, he went along the Murray Frith to
Hodiabers, taking Culloden Muir and Brodie House in his way. — 7%tir9-
dfay* Came over Culloden Muir-*reflections on the field of battle — break-
at Kilraick— old Mrs. Rose — sterling sense, warm heart, strong pas-
honest pride — all to an uncommon degree — a true chieftain's wife,
daughter of Clephane — Mrs. Rose junior, a little milder than the mother,
perhaps owing to her being younger — two young ladies — ^Miss Rose sung
two Gaelic songs — beautiful and lovely — Miss Sophy Brodie, not very
beautiful, but most agreeable and amiable — both of them the gentlest, mild-
eat, sweetest creatures on earth, and happiness b^ with Uiem ! Brodie.
House to lie-— Mr. B. truly polite, but not quite the Highland cordiality.—-
JPriday^ Cross the Findhom to Forres — famous stone at Forres — Mr. Bro*
die tells me the muir where Shakspeare lays Macbeth's witch*meeting, is
•till haunted — that the country folks won't pass by night — Elgin — ^vene-
rable ruins of the abbey, a grander effect at first glance than Melrose, but
nothing near so beautifuL — Cross Spey to Fochabers — ^fine palace, worthy
cf the noble, the polite, the generous proprietor — the Duke makes me hap*
pier than ever great man did ; noble, princely, yet mild, condescending,
and aflbble— gay and kind. — The Duchess charming, witty, kind, and sen-
aible— Xjod bless them."*
Bums, who had been much noticed by this noble family when in Edin-
burgh, happened to present himself at Gordon Castle, just at the dinner
hour, and being invited to take a place at the table, did so> without for the
moment adverting to the circumstance that his travelling companion had
been left alone at the inn, in the adjacent village. On remembering this
aooQ after dinner, he begged to be allowed to rejoin his friend ; and the
Duke of Gordon, who now for the first time learned that he was not jour-
neying alone, immediately proposed to send an invitation to Mr Nicoll tp
come to the Castle. His Grace's messenger found the haughty school-
master striding up and down before the inn door, in a state of high wrath
and indignation, at what he considered Bums's neglect, and no apologies
could s(^n his mood. He had already ordered horses, and the poet find-
ing that he must choose between the ducal circle and his irritable associ-
ate, at once left Gordon Castle, and repaired to the inn ; whence Nicoll
mad he, in silence and mutual displeasure, pursued their joumey along the
* Extnct tan JooniiL
budi LIFB OF ROBERT BURNS.
€SOMt of the Murray Frith. The abridgment of Burns^s visit at Gordon
CS«atle» ** was not only," says Mr. Walker, << a mortifying disappointment,
but in all probability a serious misfortune, as a longer stay among persons
cf such influence, might have begot a permanent intimacy, and on their
parts, an active concern for his future advancement.** * But this touches
mi a delicate subject, which we shall not at present pause to consider.
Pursuing his journey along the coast, the poet visited successively
Nairn, Forres, Aberdeen, and Stonehive ; where one of his relations, James
Bumess, writer in Montrose, met him by appointment, and conducted him
Into the circle of his paternal kindred, among whom he spent two or three
days. When William Bumess, his father, abandoned his native district,
never to revisit it, he, as he used to tell his children, took a sorrowful fkre-
well of his brother on the summit of the last hill from which the roof of
their lowly home could be descried ; and the old man appears to have
ever after kept up an aflPectionate correspondence with his family. It fell
to the poet's lot to communicate his father's death to th^ Kincardineshire
Idndred, and afWr that he seems to have maintained the same sort of cor-
vespondence. He now formed a personal acquaintance with these good
people, and in a letter to his brother Gilbert, we find him describing them
in terms which show the lively interest he took in all their concerns. *
** The rest of my stages," says he, " are not worth rehearsing : warm
at I was from Ossion's country, where I had seen his very grave, what
eared I for fishing towns and fertile carses ?*' He arrived once more in
Auld Reekie, on tlie 16th of September, having travelled about six Inm-
dred -miles in two*and-twenty days — greatly extended his acquaintance
with his own country, and visited some of its most classical scenery — ob-
served something of Highland manners, which must have been as interest-
ing as they were novel to him — and strengthened considerably among the
•lardy Jacobites of the North those political opinions which he at this pe-
riod avowed.
Of the few poems composed during this Highland tour, we have already
Mentioned two or three. While standing by the Fall of Fycrs, near Loch
Mesfy he wrote with his pencil the vigorous couplets —
*'*' Among the heathy hiDs and rugged woodm
The roaring Fyen pours his mossy floods,^ Stc
When at Sir William Murray's of Ochtert3rre, he celebrated Miss Murray
of Lintrose, commonly called " The Flower of Sutherland," in the Song—
'' Blythe, blythe, and merry was she,
Blythe was she bat and ben,'* &c
And the verses On Scaring some Wild/owl on Loch Turit, —
" Why, ye tenants of the lake,
For me your wat*ry haunu foruke,** Ac
were composed while imder the same roof. Tliesc last, except perhi^
Bruar Waier^ are the best that he added to his collection during the wan-
derings of the summer. But in Burns's subsequent productions, we find
many traces of the delight with which he had contemplated nature in these
alpine regions.
*^ General CoixsipoDdeiicc*
LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. hxiU
The poet once more visited his family at Mossgiel, and Mr. Miller at
Dalswinton, ere the winter set in ; and on more leisurely examination of
that gentleman's estate, we find him writing as if he had all but decided
to become his tenant on the farm of Elliesland. It was not, however, un«
til he had i&r the third time visited Dumfriesshire, in March 1788| that A
bargain was actually concluded. More than half of the intervening
months were spent in Edinburgh, where Burns foimd, or fancied that hit
presence was necessary fbr the satisfactory completion of his affairs with
the booksellers. It seems to be clear enough that one great object was the
society of his jovial intimates in the capital. Nor was he without thie
amusement of a little romance to fill up what vacant hours they lefl him.
He lodged that winter in Bristo Street, on purpose to be near a beautiful
widow — the same to whom he addressed the song,
*^ Clarinda, mistress of my soul,** &c.
and a series of prose epistles, which have been separately published, and
irhich present md^e instances of bad taste, bombastic language, and fulsome
sentiriient, than could be produced from all his writings besides.
At this time the publication called Johnsons Museum of Scottish Song
was going on in Edinburgh ; and tb.e editor appears to have early prevailed on
Bums to give him his assistance in tlie arrangement of his materials. Thouch
Chreen grow the rashes is the only song, entirely his, which appears in tne
first volume, published in 1787. many of the old ballads uicluded in that
▼olume bear traces of his hand ; but in the second volume, which appeared
in March 1788, we find no fewer than ^-^q songs by 4^ums ; two that have
been already mentioned, * and three far better than them, viz. 77i0iim(
MenzM bonny Mary; that grand l}Tic,
'^ Farewell, ye dungeons dark and strong,
The wretches dc:$tiny,
3Iaq)herson*s time wiJl not be long
On yonder gallows tree ;"
both of which performances bespeak the recent impressions of his Highland
visit ; and, lastly, Whistle and 1*11 come to you, my lad. Bums had been
from his youth upwards an enthusiastic lover of the old minstrelsy and
music of his country ; but he now studied both subjects with far better op-
portunities and appliances than he could have commanded previously ; and
it is from this time that we must date his ambition to transmit his own
poetry to posterity, in eternal association with those exquisite airs which
had hitherto, in far too many instrnces, been married to verses that did
not deserve to be immortal. It is well known that from this time Burns
composed very few pieces but songs ; and whether we ought or not to re-
gret that such was die case, must depend on the estimate we make of his
songs as compared with his other poems ; a point on which critics are to this
hour divided, and on which their descendants are not very likely to agree.
Mr. Walker, who is one of those that lament Bums's comparative derelic-
tion of the species of composition which he most cultivated in the early
days of his inspiration, suggests very sensibly, that if Bums had not taken
to song-writing, he would probably have written little or nothing amidst
the various temptations to company and dissipation which now and hence*
forth surrounded him — to say nothing of the active duties of life in which
• u cUrinds,'* and ^' How pleuant the banks of the clear winding Peroiu"*
12
haif LIFE OF ROBERT BURN&'
he WM at lengia about to be engaged. Bums was present, on the Slst of
December, at a dinner to celebrate the birth-day of the unfortunate Prince
Charles Edward Stuart, and produced on the occasion an ode, part of which
Dr. Currie has preserved. The specimen will not induce any regret that
the renuunder of the piece has been suppressed. It appears to be a mouth-
ing rhapsody — ^far, far different indeed from the ChevaUer's Lament^ which
the poet composed some months afterwards, with probably the tithe of
die eflfort, while riding alone ** through a track of melancholy muirs be-
tween Galloway and A3n-8hire, it being Sunday." *
For six weeks of the time that Bums spent this year in Edinburgh, he
was confined to his room, in consequence of an overturn in a hackney coach.
** Here I am," he writes, ** under the care of a surgeon, with a bruised
limb extended on a cushion, and the tints of my mind vying with the livid
liorrors preceding a midnight thunder-storm. A drunken coachman was
the cause of the first, and incomparably the lightest evil ; misfSrtune, bodi-
ly constitution, hell, and myself, have formed a quadruple aiUance po gua^-
rantee the other. I have taken tooth and nail to the Bible, and am got
hfllf way through the five books of Moses, and half way in Joshua. It is
really a glorious book. I sent for my bookbinder to-day, and ordered him
to get an 8vo. Bible in sheets, the best paper and print in town, and bind *
it with all the elegance of his craft." f — In another letter, which opens gaily
enough, we find him reverting to the same prevailing darkness of moocL
<' I can't say I am altogether at my ease when I see anywhere in my path
that meagre, squalid, famine-faced spectre. Poverty, attended as he always
is by iron-fitted Oppression, and leering Contempt. But I have sturdily
withstood his buffetirgs many a hard-laboured day, and still my motto is /
PARE. My worst enemy is tnoi-meme. There are just two creatures that
I would envy — a horse in his wild state traversing the forests of Asia, or
an oyster on some of the desert shores of Europe. The one has not a wish
, without enjoyment; the other has neither wish nor fear." J — One more
specimen may be sufficient. || <* These h^ve been six horrible weeks.
Anguish and low spirits have made me unfit to read, write, or think. I have
a hundred times wished that one could resign life as an officer does a com-
mission ; for I would not take in any poor ignorant wretch by selling ouL
Lately, I was a sixpenny private, and God knows a miserable soldier enough :
now I march to the campaign a starving cadet, a little more conspicuously
wretched. I am ashamed of all this ; for though I do not want bravery for
the warfare of life, I could wish, like some other soldiers, to have as much
fortitude or cunning as to dissemble or conceal my cowardice."
#t seems impossible to doubt that Bums had in fact lingered in Edin-
burgh, in the hope that, to use a vague but sufficiently expressive phrase,
something would be done for him. He visited and revisited a farm, — talked
•ad wrote about *' having a fortune at the plough-tail," and so forth ; but
all the while nourished, and assuredly it would have been most strange if
ha had not, the fond dream that the admiration of his country would ere
kmg present* itself in some solid and tangible shape. His illness and con-
Cnement gave him leisure to concentrate his imagination on the darker side
af his prospects ; and the letters which we have quoted may teach those
who envy the powers and the fame of genius, to pause for a moment over
* Oenenl Correnxmdeooe, No. 46.
IRdiqoes, p. 43. $ Ibid. p. 44.
Gcoenl CorretpoodcDce, Nob 4a.
LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. * Ixxf
the annals of literature, and think what superior capabilities of misery have
been, in the great majority of cases, interwoven with the possession of
those very talents, from which all but their possessors derive unmingled
gratification. Bums*s distresses, however, were to be still farther aggravated*
While still under the hands of his surgeon, he received intelligence from
Mauchline that his intimacy with Jean Armour had once more exposed
her to the reproaches of her family. The father sternly and at once turned
her out of doors; and Bums, unable to walk across his room, had to write
to his friends in Mauchline to procure shelter for his children, and for her
whom he considered as — all but his wife. In a letter to Mrs. Dunlop»
written on hearing of this new misfortune, he says, ^< * / wish I were dead,
htti Tm no like to die* I fear I am something like — undone ; but I hope for
the best. You must not desert mc. Your friendship I think I can count
on, though I should date my letters from a marching regiment. Early in
life, and eJl my life, I reckoned on a recruiting drum as my forlorn hope. Se«
riously, though, life at present presents me with but a melancholy path^—
But my limb will soon be sound, and I shall struggle on." *
it seems to have been now that Burns at last screwed up his courage to
mUeU the active interference in his behalf of tlie Earl of Glencairn. The
letter is a brief one. Burns could ill endure this novel attitude, xmd he
bushed at once to his request. *< I wish," says he, '^ to get into the excise*
I am told your Lordship will easily procure me the grant from the com-
niissioners ; and your lordship*s patronage and kindness, wliich have already
rescued me from obscurity, wretchedness, and exile, embolden me to ask
that interest. You have likewise put it in my power to save tlie little tie
of ikwie, that sheltered an aged mother, two brothers, and three sistera
from destruction. There, my lord, you have bound me over to the highest
latitude. My heart sinks within me at the idea of applying to any
other of The Great who have honoured mc with their countenance. I am
ill qualified to dog the heels of greatness with the impertinence of solicita-
tion ; and tremble nearly as much at the thought of the cold promise as of
the cold denial." f It would be hard to think that this letter was coldly or
negligently received ; on the contrary, we know that Burns's gratitude to
Lord Glencairn lasted as long as his life. But the excise appointment
which he coveted was not procured by any exertion of his hoble patron's
influence. Mr. Alexander Wood, surgeon, (still affectionately remembered
in Edinburgh as *< kind old Sandy Wood,") happening to hear Bums, while
his patient, mention the object of his wishes, v/ent immediately, without
dropping any hint of his inten^on, and communicated the state of the
poet's case to Mr. Graham of Fin tray, one of the commissioners of excis^
who had met Burns at the Duke of A thole's in the autumn, and who im-
mediately had the poet's name put on tlie roll. — <* I have chosen tliis, my
dear friend," (tlius wrote Burns to Mrs. Dunlop), *< after mature delibera-
tion. The question is not at what door of Fortune's palace shall we enter
in ; but what doors does she open to us ? I was not likely to get any thing
to do. I wanted un buty which is a dangerous, an unhappy situation. I got
this without any hanging on or mortifying solicitation. It is immediate
bread, and, though poor in comparison of the last eighteen months of my
existence, 'tis luxury in comparison of all my preceding life. Besides, the
commissioners are some of them my acquaintances, and all of them my
firm friends.'* X
* Bdiques, p. 48. f Geneial Correspondence; No. 40. $ Rdiquesy p. Mt
fautW
LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS.
Our poet seems to have kept up an angry correspondence during bis con-
finement with his bookseller, Mr. Creech, whom he also abuses very heartily
in his letters to his friends in Ayrshire. The publisher's accounts, however*
when they were at last made up, must have given tlie impatient author a
very agreeable surprise ; for, in his letter above quoted, to Lord Glencainiy
we find him expressing his hopes that the gross profits of his book might
amount to << better than ^€200," whereas, on the day of settling with Mr.
Creech, he found himself in possession of £500, if not of £600. Mr. Ni-
coll, the most intimate friend Burns had, writes to Mr John Lewarsy ex«
cise officer at Dumfries, immediately on hearing of the poet's death, — *' He
certainly told me that he received i: tiOO for the first Edinburgh edition, and
£100 afterwards for the copyright." — Dr. Currie states the gross product
of Creech's edition at £500, and Burns himself, in one of his printed let-
ters, at £400 only. Nicoll hints, in the letter already referred to, that
Bums had contracted debts while in Edinburgh, which he might not wish
to avow on all occasions ; and if we arc to believe this — and» as is probablci
the expense of printing the subscription edition, should, moreover, be de-
ducted from the £700 stated by Mr. Nicoll — the apparent contradictions
id these stories may be pretty nearly reconciled. There appears to be
reason for thinking that Creech subsequently paid more than £100 for the
cq)yright. If he did not, how came Bums to realize, as Currie states it
at the end of his Memoir, " nearly £900 in all by his poems?"
This supply came truly in the hour of need ; and it seems to have ele-
vated his spirits greatly, and given him for the time a new stock of confi-
dence ; for he now resumed immediately his purpose of taking Mr. Miller'i
farm, retaining his excise commission in his pocket as a dernier resart^ to be
made, use of only should some reverse of fortune come upon him. His first
act, however, was to relieve his brotlier from his difficulties, by advancing
£180 or £200, to assist him in the management of Mossgiel. '* I give my- '
self no airs on this," he generously says, in a letter to Dr. Moore, *< for It
was mere selfishness on my part. 1 was conscious that the wrong scale of
the balance was pretty heavily charged, and I thought that the throwing a
little filial piety and fraternal affection into the scale in my fitvour, might
help to smooth matters at the grattd reckoning.** *
* Genei;Bl Con:e8pondence,«Ko.6&
CHAPTER VII.
C&9KWf9> ^^Marriiim^AMmottneemeHitf fapolo^eticaljt of the event "^lUMork^-^Stcomu
(1786) JPbi'MtJ' atJSBiuUmd^ on the Nitky in a romamtie vicinity, $i* milee from J}tm^He9~^
Tke Mutt waktfkd at coer, whiU the Poet mainiaine a varied and extendve Ktermy eom»
ipamdemee with ail and tuiufry — Remarks upon the correepondmue — Sketch of hie jmtmh
mad kabitt at ikie period by a brother poetf who ehows eauee against euceeu in farming-'-^
The Wfdmoatd cmytmetion of Ganger to Farmer — The notice of the equirewrehg, cmd the
mtk ^mdmiring viaiiore, lead too uniformly to the uhra convivial lift'^Leatee ElHeeiand
( 1791 ) to he exciseman in the town of jDumfriet,
«( To nuke a btppy fireside clime
For weans and wife —
That*B the true pathos and sublime
Of human life,**
BuftHs, ai soon as his bruised limb was able for a journey, went to Moss*
gUf md went through the ceremony of a Jus tice-of- Peace marriage with
JeiD Armoor, in the writing-chambers of his friend Gavin Hamilton. He
then crossed the country to Dalswinton, and concluded his bargain with
Mr. Miller as to the farm of Ellicsland, on terms which must undoubtedly
have been considered by both parties, as highly favourable to the poet;
they were indeed fixed by two of Bums's own friends, who accompanied
him fiir that purpose from Ayrshire. The lease was for four successive
tennSy of nineteen years each, — in all seventy- six years ; the rent for the
first three years and crops X'50 ; during the remainder of the ' period £70
per annum. Mr. Miller bound himself to defray the expense of any plan*
tattoos which Bums might please to make on die banks of the river ; and,
the fiinn-house and offices being in a de]it])ldated condition, the new tenant
was to receive £300 fiom the proprietor, for the erection of suitable build-
ings. Bums entered on possession of his farm at Whitsuntide 1788, but
the necessary rebuilding of the house prevented his removing Mrs. Bums
thither until the season was far advanced. He had, moreover, to qualify
himself far holding his excise commission by six weeks* attendance on the
bnuness of that profession at Ayr. From these circumstances, he led all
the summer a wandering and unsettled life,- and Dr. Currie mentions this
atone of his chief misfortunes.' The poet, as he says, was continually rid-
ing between A3nrshire and Dumfriesshire, and oflen spending a night on
the road, ** sometimes fell into company, and forgot the resolutions he had
formed." What these resolutions were, the poet himself shall tell us. On
the third day of his residence at Elliesland, he thus writes to Mr. Ainslie :
-»'* I have all along hitherto, in the warfare of hfe, been bred to amis,
among the li^ht-horse, the piquet guards of fancy, a kind of hussars and
Highlanders of the brain ; but I am firmly resolved to sell out of these giddy
battalions. Cost what it will, I am determined to buy in among the grave
aquadrons of heavy-armed thought, or the artillery corps of plodding con
•\
ixxviii tn^E OF ROdERT BUtlNS.
trivance. • • • Were it not for the terrors of mj ticklish situation re*
tpecting a family of children, I am decidedly of opinion that tUb step 1 have
taken is vastly for my happiness." *
To all his friends he expresses himself in terms of similar satisfaction in
regard to his marriage. ** Your surmise, Madam/' he writes to Mrs. Dun«
lop, ** is just. I am indeed a husband. I found a once much^loved, and
still much-loved female, literally and truly cast out to the mercy of the
naked elements, but as I enabled her to purchase a shelter ; and there is no
sporting with a fellow-crcature*s happiness or misery. The most pJacid
goodnature and sweetness of disposition ; a warm heart, gratefully devoted
with all its powers to love me ; vigorous health and sprightly cheerfulness,
let off to the best advantage by a more than commonly handsome figure ;
these, I think, in a woman, may make a good wife, though she should ne-
ver have read a page but the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament,
nor danced in a brighter assembly 'than a penny-pay wedding
To jealousy or infidelity I am an equal stranger ; my preservative from the
first, is the most thorough consciousness of her sentiments of honpur, and
her. attachment to me ; my antidote against the last, is my long and deep-
rooted affection for her. In housewife matters, of aptness to learn, and
activity to execute, she is eminently mistress, and during my absence in
Nithsdale, she is regularly and constantly an apprentice to my mother and
sisters in their dairy, and other rural business You are ri^t,
that a bachelor state would have ensured me more friends ; but fnm a
cause you will easily guess, conscious peace in the enjoyment of my own
mind, and unmistrusting confidence in approaching my God, would seldom
have been of the number." f
Some months later he tells Miss Chalmers that his marriage '' was noty
perhaps, in consequence of the attachment of romance,*' — (he is addressing
a voung lady), — '* but," he continues, '* I have no cause to repent it. If
I have not got polite tattle, modish manners, and fashionable dress, I am noc
tickened and disgi^ted with the multiform curse of boarding-school afiec-
tation ; and I have got the handsomest figure, the sweetest temper, the
soundest constitution, and the kindest heart in the country. Mrs. Bums
believes as firmly as her creed, that I am leplus bel esprit ei iephu kmnite
komme in the universe ; although she scarcely ever, in her life, except the
Scriptures and the Ptolms of David in Metre, spent five minutes together
on either prose or verse^I must except also a certain late publication of
Scots poems, which she has perused very devoutly, and all the ballads of
the country, as she has (O die partial lover, you will say), the finest
woodnote-wild I ever heard." — It was during this honeymoon, as he calls
it, while chiefly resident in a miserable hovel at EUiesland, j: and only
occasionally spending a day or two in Ayrshire, that he wrote the beautiful
song: II
*' Of a* the airts the liind can blaw I dearly like the wett,
For there the bonnie lassie lives, the lassie I lo*e best ;
There wildwoods grow, and rivers row, and niony a hUl between {
But day and night my fancy^s flight is ever wi* my Jean.
O blaw, ve westlin winds, Uaw saft amang the leafy trees,
AVr ffentie gale, frae muir and dale, bringname the laden bees.
And bting tne lassie back" to me, that*s ave sae neat and dean.;
Ae blink o* her wad banish care, sae lovdy is my Jean.**
* Reliqaes, p. 6S. f See General Correspondence, No. (8; and ReUmics, p. 0(k
$ Adiqaes, p. 70* H Ihid. p. 273^
tan OP ROBERT BURNS.. Ixxlk
Ooe of burns's letters* written not long after this* contains a passage strong-
I7 marked with his haughtiness of character. •< I have escaped," says he,
** the fantastic caprice, the apish affectation, with all the other blessed
boarding-school acquirements which are sometimes to be found aknong fk»
nales or the upper ranks, but almost universally pervade the misses of the
WDidd-be gentry." ♦
** A discerning reader,*' says Mr. Walker, " will perceive that the let-
ters in which he announces his marriage to some of his most respected cor-
Teipondents, are written in that state when the mind is pained by reflect-
ing OD an unwelcome step, and finds relief to itself in seeking argumentf
to justify the deed, and lessen its disadvantages in the opinion of others." f
I confess I am not able to discern any traces of this kind of feeling in any
of Bums's letters on this interesting and important occasion. The Rer.
Hamilton Paul takes an original view of this business : — *' Much praisev**
MtLjM he, " has been lavished on Bums for renewing his engagement with
Jean when in the blaze of his fame. . . The praise is misplaced. We
do not think a man entitled to credit or commendation for doing what the
law could compel him to perform. Bums was in reality a married man*
and it is truly ludicrous to hear him, aware as he must have been, of the in-
disaoluble power of the obligation, though every document was destroyed,
talking of himself as a bachelor." % There is no justice in these remaiks.
It is very true, that, by a merciful fiction of the law of Scotland, the fe-
male, in Miss Armour*s condition, who produces a written promise of mar-
nage, is considered as having furnished evidence of an irregular marriage
lianng taken place between her and her lover ; but in this case the femide
herself had destroyed the document, and lived for many months not only
not assuming, but rejecting the character of Bums's wife ; and had she, un-
der such circumstances, attempted to establish a marriage, with no docu-
ment in her hand, and widi no parole evidence to show that any such do-
cmnmt had ever existed, to say nothing of proving its exact tenor, but
that of her own father, it is clear that no ecclesiastical court in the world
could have failed to decide against her. So far from Bums's having all
along regarded her as his wife, it is extremely doubtful whether she had
•rer for one moment considered him as actually her husband, imtil he de-
clared the marriage of 1788. Burns did no more than justice as well as
honour demanded ; but the act was one which no human tribunal could
have compelled him to perform.
To return to our story. Bums complains sadly of his solitary condition,
when living in the only hovel that he found extant on his farm. << I am,"
says he, (September 9th) « busy with my harvest, but for all that most
pleasurable part of life called social intercourse, I am here at the very el-
bow of existence. The only things that are to be found in this country in
any degree of perfection, are stupidity and canting. Prose they only know
in graces, &c, and the value of these they estimate as they do th^ir plaid-
ing webs, by the ell. As for the muses, they have as much idea of ft rhino-
ceros as of a poet." And in another letter (September 16th) he says,
** This hovel that I shelter in while occasionaUy here, is pervious to every
Uast that blows, and every shower that falls, and I am only preserved
from being chilled to death by being suffocated by smoke. You will be
pleased to hear that I have laid aside idle eclat, and bind every day after
* General CorreipondeDce, No^ 55. f Monison, voL L p. bocxyis.
tf, Paori life of Bumi, p. 45.
fattt LIF£ OP ROBERT BURKS.
my reapers." His house, however, did not take much time in buildiiig $
nor haa he reason to complain of want of society long. He brou^t hb
wife home to EUiesland about tlie end of November ; and few housekeepers
•tart with a larger provision of young mouthy to feed than this couple. Mrs.
Qums had lain in this autumn, for the second time, of twins, and I sup-
pose ^ sonsy, smirking, dear-bought Bess,"* accompanied her younger bro-
thers and sisters from Mossgiel. From that quarter also Bums brought a
whole establishment of servants, male and female, who, of course, as was
then the universal custom amongst the small farmers, both of the west and
of the south of Scotland, partook, at the same table, of the same fare with
their master and mistress.
EUiesland is beautifully situated on the banks of the Nith, about six miles
aibove Dumfries, exactly opposite to the house of Dalswinton, of those noble
woods and gardens amidst which Burns*s landlord, the ingenious Mr. Fa-
trick Miller, found relaxation from tiic scientific studies and researches in
which he so greatly excelled. On tlic Dalswinton side, the river washes
lawns and groves ; but over against these the bank rises into a long red
9eaur, of considerable height, alon<; the verge of which, where the bare
ihingle of the precipice all but overhan;7s the stream. Bums had his favoit*
rite walk, and might now be seen striding alone, early and late, especially
when the winds were loucl, and the waters below him swollen and turbu-
lent. For he was one of those that enjoy nature most in the more serious
and severe of her aspects ; and throughout his poetry, for one allusion
fo the liveliness of spring, or the splendour of summer, it would be easy
to point out twenty in which he records the solemn delight with which he
contemplated the melancholy grandeur of autumn, or the savage gloom of
winter ; and he has himself told us, that it was his custom ** to take a
gloamin' shot at the muses/'
The poet was accustomed to say, that the most happy period of his life
was the first winter he s])ent at EUiesland, — for the first time under a roof
of his own — with his wife and children about him — and in spite of oc-
casional lapses into the aiclaiicholy which had haunted his youth, looking
forward to a life of well-regulated, and not ill-rewarded, industry. It is
known that he welcomed his wife to her rooftree at £lliesland in the song,
'^ I hae a wife o* mine ain, 1*11 partake vi* naebody ;
1*11 tak cuckold frac nane. ril gie cuckold to nacbody ;
1 hao a penny to spend— there —thanks to naebodv ;
1 hoe naething to lend— rU borrow frae naebody."
In commentuig on tliis " little lively lucky song," as he well calls it, Mr. A.
Cunningham says, " Burns liad built his house, he had committed his
•eed-corn to the ground, he was in the prime, nay the morning of life —
health, and strengtli, and agricultural skill were on his side — -his genius
had been acknowledged by his country, and rewarded by a subscription,
more extensive than any Scottish poet ever received before ; no wonder,
therefore, that he broke out into voluntary song, expressive of his sense of
importance and independence."
Bums, in his letters of the year 1789, makes many apologies for doing
but little in his poetical vocation ; his farm, without doubt, occupied much
of his attention, but the want of social intercourse, of which he complained
on his first arrival m Nithsdale, had by this time totally disappeared. On
* PoETTCAi. Inventory to Mr. Aiken, Febmsiy ITW^i
LIFE OP ROBERT BORNS. Ixxxl
the contrary, his company wait courted eagerly, not only by his brother*
farmers^ but by the neighbouring gentry of all classes ; and now, too, for
the first time, he began to be visited continually in his own liouse by curi-
ous travellers of all sorts, who did not consider, any more than the gene-
rous poet himself, that an extensive practice of hospitality must cost more
time than he ought to have had, and far more money than he ever hady at
his disposal. Meantime, he was not wholly regardless of the muses ; for
in addition to some pieces which we have already had occasion to notice,
he contributed to this year's Muskum, The Tiiames Jiuws prmidly to the
Sea ; Tite lazy mist haitgg^ S^c. ; The day retumSy my boxom bums ; Tam
Glen^ (one of the best of his humorous songs) ; the splendid lyric. Go
fitch to me a pint of tai»e, and My heart's in t/ie HielandSi (in both of which^
however, he adopted some lines of ancient songs to the same tunes) ; John
Aiuiereon. in part also a rifacciamento ; the best of all his Bacchanalian
' pieces, Willie brewed a peck o maiUt written in celebration of a festive meet-
ing at the country residence, in Dumfriesshire, of his friend Mr. NicoU of
the High School ; and lastly, that noblest of all his ballads, To Mary in
Heaven, This celebrated poem was, it is on all hands admitted, composed
• by Bums in September 1789, on the anniversary of the day on which he
heard of the deatli of his early love, Mary Campbell ; but Mr. Cromek
has thought fit to dress up the story with circumstances which did not oc-
cur. Mrs. Bums, the only person who could appeal to personal recollec-
tion on tliis occasion, and whose recollections of all circumstances con-
nected with the history of her husbancfs poems, are represented as being
remarkably distinct and vivid, gives what may at first appear a more pro-
saic edition of the history. * According to her. Burns spent that day,
though labouring under cold, in the usual work of his harvest, and appa-
rently in excellent spirits. But us the twilight deepened, he appeared to
grow ** very sad about something," and at length wandered out into the
bam-yard, to which his wife, in her anxiety for his health, followed him,
entreating him in vain to observe tliat frost had set in, and to return
to the fireside. On being again and again requested to do so, he always
promised compliance — but still remained where he was, striding up and
down slowly, and contemplating the sky, which was singularly clear and
starry. At last Mrs. Burns found him stretched on a mass of straw, with
his eyes fixed on a beautiful planet ** that shone like another moon ;" and
prevailed on him to come in. He immediately on entering the house, called
lor his desk, and wrote exactly as they now stand, with all the ease of one
copying from memory, the sublime and pathetic verses —
*^ Thou lingering star with lessening ray.
That lovest to greet the early mom.
Again thou usher*st in the day
Aly Mary from my soul was torn.
O Alary, dear departed shade.
Where is thy place of blissful rest ;
See*st thou tliy lover lowly laid,
nearest thou the groans tliat rend his breast ?^ &c
The Motlierg Lament for her Son^ and Inscription in an Hermitage m
Ntthidale^ were also written this year. From the time when Bums settled
> himself in Dumfriesshire, he appears to have conducted with much care
tlie extensive correspondence in wliich his celebrity had engaged him. The
* I owe thfte particulars to Af r. 9I*Diannid, the ibk editor of die Oumfrin Courier, wofi
^ Imnher of -die Umepled author of ^^ Lives of British StateamcD*"*
i3
}
.'■
i
Ixxxu LTtfi OF ROftfiRT BURNS.
letters that passed between him and his brother Gilbert, afe amottg the
most precious of the collection. That the brothers had entire knowledge
of and confidence in each other, no one can doubt ; and the plain mamjr
affectionate language in which they both write, is truly honourable to them^
and to the parents that reared them. << Dear Brother," writes Gilbert,
January Ist, 1789, *< I have just finished my new-year*s-day breakfast in
the usual form, which naturally makes me call to mind the days of former
years, and the society in which we used to begin them ; and when I look
at our family vicissitudes, * through the dark postern of time lonff elapsed,'
I cannot help remarking to you, my dear brother, how good &e God of
seasons is to us ; and that, however some clouds may seem to lour over
the portion of time before us, we have great reason to hope that all will
turn out well."
It was on the same new-year*s-day that Bums himself addressed to Mrs. ^
Dunlop a letter, part of which is here transcribed. It is dated EUieslandy
New-year-day morning, 1789, and certainly cannot be read too oflen :—
** This, dear Madam, is a morning of wishes, and would to God that I
came under the apostle Jameses description ! — the prayer rf a righteous man
availeth much. In that case, madam, you should welcome in a year full a£
blessings ; every thing that obstructs or disturbs tranquillity and self-enjoy«
ment, should be removed, and every pleasure that frail humanity can taste,
should be yours. I own myself so little a Presbyterian, that I approve of
set times and seasons of more than ordinary acts of devotion, for breaking
in on that habituated routine of life and thought, which is so apt to reduce
our existence to a kind of instinct, or even sometimes, and with some minds,
to a state very little superior to mere machinery. This day, — the first
Sunday of May, — a breezy, blue-skyed moon sometime about the begin-
ning, and a hoary morning and calm sunny day about the end of autumn ;
these, time out of mind, have been with me a kind of holiday.
*< I believe I owe this to that glorious paper in the Spectator, ' The
Vision of Mirza ;* a piece that struck my young fancy before I was capable
of fixing an idea to a word of three syllables : * On the 5th day of the moon,
which, according to the custom of my forefathers, I always heq) hofyy afVer
having washed myself, and offered up my morning devotions, I ascended
the high hill of Bagdat, in order to pass the rest of the day in meditation
and prayer.' We know nothing, or next to nothing, of the substance or
structure of our souls, so cannot account for those seeming caprices in
them, that one should be particularly pleased with this thing, or struck
with that, which, on minds of a different cast, makes no extraordinary im-
pression. I have some favourite flowers in spring, among which are the
mountain-daisy, the hare-bell, the fox-glove, the wild brier-rose, the bud-
ding-birch, and the hoary hawthorn, that I view and hang over with par-
ticular delight. 1 never hear the loud, solitary whistle of the curlew in a
summer noon, or the wild mixing cadence of a troop of grey plover, in an
autumnal morning, without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm
of devotion or poetry. Tell me, my dear friend, to what can this be ow-
ing ? Are we a piece of machinery, which, like the ^olian harp, passive,
takes the impression of the passing accident ? Or do these workings argue
something within us above the trodden clod ? I own myself partial to such
proofs of those awful and important realities — a God that made all things
-—man's immaterial and immortal nature--and a world of weal or woe be^
yond death and the ^ve."
LIFE OP ROBEtlT hVR^S. kxxiit
Pew, it is to be hoped, can read such things as these without delight ;
Hone, surely, that taste the elevated pleasure they are calculated to in-
qiire, can turn from tliem to the well-known issue of Bums*s history, with-
out being afflicted. The '* golden days'* of Elliesland, as Dr. Currie justly
Cidls them, were not destined to be many. Burns's farming speculations
once more failed ; and he himself seems to have been aware that such was
likely to be the case ere he had given the business many months* trial ; for,
ere the autumn of 1788 was over, he applied to his patron, Mr. Graham of
Fintray, for actual employment as an exciseman, and was accordingly ap-
pointed to do duty, in that capacity, in the district where his lands were
situated. His income, as a revenue ofHccr, was at first only £35 ; it by
and by rose to VbO ; and sometimes was £70. These pounds were hardly
tuned, since the duties of his new calling necessarily withdrew him very
often from the farm, which needed his utmost attention, and exposed him,
which was still worse, to innumerable temptations of the kind he was lease
Bkely to resist
I have now the satisfaction of prescntipg the reader with some particu-
lars of this part of Hurns's history, derived from a source which every
lover of Scotland and Scottisli poetry must be prepared to hear mentioned
with respect. It happened that at the time when our poet went to Niths-
dale, the father of Mr. Allan Cunningham was steward on the estate of
Dalswinton : he was, as all who have read the writings of his sons will
readily believe, a man of remarkable talents and attainments : he was a
wise and good man ; a devout admirer of Burns's genius ; and one of those
sober neighbours who in vain strove, by advice and warning, to arrest the
poet in the downhill path, towards which a thousand seductions were per-
petually drawing him. Mr. Allan Cunningliani was, of course, almost a
child when he first saw Burns ; but, in what he has to say on this subject,
we may be sure we are hearing the substance of his benevolent and saga-
cious father's observations and reflections. His own boyish recollections
of the poet*s personal appearance and demeanour will, however, be read
with interest. •' I was very young," says Allan Cunningham, " when I
first saw Bums. He came to see my father ; and their conversation turned
partly on farming, partly on poetry, in both of which my father had taste
and skill. Burns had just come to Nithsdale ; and I think he appeared a
shade more swarthy tlian he does in Nasmytlf s picture, and at least ten years
older tlian he really was at the time, liis face was deeply marked by
thoUlght, and the habitual expression intensely melancholy. His frame was
very muscular and well proportioned, though he had a short neck, and
something of a ploughman's stoop : he was strong, and proud of his strength.
I saw him one evening match himself with a number of masons ; and out
of (ive-and-twenty practised hands, the most vigorous young men in tlie
parish, there was only one that could lift the same weight as Bums. He
liad a very manly face, and a very melancholy look ; but on the coming of
those he esteemed, his looks brightened up, and his whole face beamed
witli affection and genius. His voice was very musical. I once heard
him read Tarn o Shunter. I think I hear him now. His fine manly voice
followed all the undulations of the sense, and expressed as well as his ge-
nius had done, the pathos and humour, the horrible and the awful, of that
wonderful performance. As a man feels, so will he write ; and in propor-
tion as he sympatliizes with his author, so will he read him with grace and
'. .'
\%x%lt Ut& OP ROBfiRT BUttyS.
*< I said tliat Durns and my fatlicr conversed about poetry and ftrtnmg.
The poet had newly taken possession of his farm of ElHesland,— tlie maMtii
were busy building his house, — the applause of tlie world was with hiro«
and a little of its money in his pocket* — in short, he had found a resting**
place at last. He spoke with great delight about the excellence of hii
farm, and particularly about the beauty of the situation. * Yes,* my father
Raid, < the walks on the river bank are fine, and you will see fVom your win*
dows some miles of the Nith; but you will also see several farms of fine
rich Ao/m, * any one o£ which you might have had. You have made a'
poet's choice, rather than a former's.' If Burns had much of a farmer's
skill, he had little of a farmer's prudence and economy. I once inquired
of James Corrie, a sagacious old farmer, whose ground marched with Ellieo*
land, the cause of the poet's failure. * Faith,' said he, * how could he miia
but fall, when his servants ate the bread as fast as it was baked ? I doa*i
mean figuratively, I mean literally, ('onsider a little. At that time cloit
economy was necessary to have enabled a man to clear twenty pounds a»
year by ElHesland. Now, Burns's own handywork was out of the ques-
tion ! he neither ploughed, nor sowed, nor reaped, at least like a hard-
working farmer ; and then he had a bevy of servants i'rom Ayrshire. The
lasses did nothing but bake bread, and the lads sat by the fireside, and ate
it warm with ale. Waste of time and consumption o£ food would soon
reach to twenty pounds a-year.' "
** The truth of the cose," says Mr. Cunningham, in anotlier letter with
which he has favoured me, " the truth is, that if Robert Burns liked hb
thrm, it was more for tlie beauty of the situation than tor the labours which
it demanded. He was too wayward to attend to the stated duties of a
husbandman, and too impatient to wait till the ground returned in sain the
cultivation he bestowed upon it. Tlie condition of a farmer, a Nithsdale
one, I mean, was then very humble. His one*story house hfid a covering
of straw, and a clay floor; the furniture wos from the hands of a country
carpenter ; and, between the roof and floor, there seldom intervened a
smoother ceiling than of rough rods and grassy turf — while a huge lang-settle
of black oak for himself, and a carved arm>chair for his wife, were the only
matters out of keeping with the homely looks of his residence. He took
all his meals in his own kitchen, and presided regularly among his children
and domestics. He performed family worship every evening.-^^xcept dur«
tng the hurry of harvest, when that duty was perhaps limited to Saturday
night. A few religious books, two or three favourite poets, the history of
his country, and his Bible, oided him in forming the minds and manners of
the family. To domestic education, Scotland owes as much as to the care
of her clergy, and the excellence of her parish schools.
** The picture out of doors was less interesting, 'llie ground from which
the farmer sought support, was generally in a very moderate state of culti-
vation. Tlie implements with which he tilled his land were primitive and
clumsy, and his own knowledge of the management of crops exceedingly
limited. He plodded on in the regular slothful routine of his ancestors ;
he rooted out no bushes, he dug up no stones ; he drained not, neither did
he enclose ; and weeds obtained their full share of the dung and the lime,
which he bestowed more like a medicine than a meal on bis soil. His
plough was the rude old Scotch one ; his harrows had as often teeth of
* //o/iff in fist, rich meadow land, intervening between s ttream and the gencnU tltVillMl
LIFE OF ROBERT BURKS. Ixxxv
wtM M of iron ; his carts were heavy and low-wheeled, or were, more
properly speaking, tunibler*carts, so called to distinguish them from trail*
eartii both of which were in common use. On these rude carriages his
Muiiire was taken to the field, and his crop brought home. The farmer
kbnself corresponded in all respects with his imperfect instruments. His
poverty secured him from risking costly experiments ; and his hatred of
aifiOYaUon made him entrench himself behind a breast-work of old maxims
and rustic saws, which he interpreted as oracles delivered against improve^
memL With ground in such condition, with tools so unHt, and with know-
ledge so imperfect, he sometimes succeeded in wringing a few hundred
pounds ScoU from the fumi lie occupied. Such was generally the state of
agriculture when Burns came to Nithsdale. I know not how far his own
skill was equal to the task of improvement — his trial was short and unfor-
tunate. An important chnnge soon took place, by which he was not fated
to profit ; he had not the ibresi<;ht to see its approach, nor, probably, the
fortitude to await its coming.
*• In the year 1790, much of the ground in Nithsdale was leased at seven,
and ten, and fifleen shillings per acre ; and the fumier« in his person and
his house, differed little from the peasants and mechanics around him. He
would have thought Ifis daughter wedded in her degree, had she married a
joiner or a mason ; and at kirk or market, all men beneath the rank of a
•• portioner" of the soil mingled together, equals in appearance and impor-
tance. But the war which soon commenced, gave a decided impulse to
agriculture : the army and navy consumed largely : corn rose in demand ;
die price augmented ; more land was called into cultivation : and, as leases
expired, the proprietors improved the grounds, built better houses, enlarg-
etl the rents ; and the farmer was soon borne on the wings of sudden wealth
Aore his original condition. His house obtained a slated roof, sash-windows,
csrpeted floors, plasteVed walls, and even began to exchange the hanks of
Gm with which it was formerly hung, for paintings and |iiunofortes. He
d aside his coat of home-made cloth ; he retired from his seat among his
servants ; he — I am grieved to mention it — gave up family worship as a
thing unfashionable, and became a kind of rmticef€tUlr$nun, who rode a blood
horse, and galloped home on market nights at the peril of his own neck, and
to the terror of every modest pedestrian. When a change like this took
place, and a farmer could, with a do/.en year^^* industry, be able to purchase
the land he rented — which many were, and many did — the same, or a still
wort profitable cliange might have happened with res|>ect to Elliesland ;
and Bums, had he stuck by his lease and his plough, would, in all human
possibility, have found the independence which he sought, and sought in
vain, from the coldness and parsimony of mankind.'*
Mr. Cunningham sums up his reminiscences of Burns at KHiesland in
these terms : — '•'• During the prosperity of his farn^, my father oftan said
tiMit Bums conducted himself wisely, and like one anxious for his name as
a nan, and his fame as a poet. He went to Dunscore Kirk on Sunday,
tkoagh he expressed oflener than once his dislike to the stem Calvinism of
that strict old divine, Mr. Kirkpatrick ; — he assisted in forming a reading
dub ; and at weddings and house-heatings, and kirns, and other scenes of fes-
tivity, he was a welcome guest, universally liked by the young and the old.
But the failure of his farming projects, and the limited income with which
be was compelled to support an increasing family and an expensive station
in lifei preyed on his spirits ; and, during these fits of despair, he was will*
IxxxTi LIFE OF ROBERT BURKS.
ing too often to become the companion of the thoughtless and tlie gross. I
am grieved to say, that besides leaving the book too much for the bowl,
and grave and wise friends for lewd and reckless companions, he was also
in the occasional practice of composing songs, in which he surpassed the
licentiousness, as well as the wit and humour, of the old Scottish muse.
These have unfortunately found their way to tlie press, and I am afraid
they cannot be recalled. In conclusion, I may say, that few men have had
so much of the poet about them, and few poets so much of the man ; — the
man was probably less pure than he ougl\]t to have been, but the poet wai
pure and bright to the last."
The reader must be sufficiently prepared to hear, that from the time
when he entered on his excise duties, the poet more and more neglected
the concerns of his farm. Occasionally, he might be seen holding the
plough, an exercise in which he excelled, and was proud of excelling, or
stalking down his furrows, with tlie white sheet of grain wrapt about him,
a " tenty seedsman ;'* but he was more commonly occupied in far different
pursuits. *' I am now,'* says he, in one of his letters, '< a poor rascally
ganger, condemned to gallop two hundred miles every week, to inspect
dirty ponds and yeasty barrels." Both in verse and in prose he has recorded
the feelings with which he first followed his new vocation. His jests on
the subject are uniformly bitter. '' 1 have the same consolation," he telle
Mr Ainslie, ** which I once heard a recruiting sergeant give to his audi-
ence in the streets of Kilmarnock : ' Gentlemen, for your farther encourage-
ment, I can assure you that ours is the most blackguard corps under the
crown, and, consequently, with us an honest fellow has the surest chance
of preferment.* " On one occasion, however, he takes a higher tone. " lliere
is a certain stigma," says he to Bishop Geddes, ** in the name of Excise-
man ; but I do not intend to borrow honour from any profession :" — whidl
may perhaps remind the reader of Gibbon's lofly language, on finally quit-
ting the learned and polished circles of London and Paris, for his Swiss re*
tirement : <* I am too modest, or too proud, to rate my value by that of
my associates."
Bums, in his perpetual perambulations over the moors of Dumfriesshire,
had every temptation to encounter, which bodily fatigue, the blandishments
of hosts and hostesses, and the habitual manners of those who acted along
with him in the duties of the excise, could present. He was, moreover,
wherever he went, exposed to perils of his own, by the reputation which
he had earned as a poet, and by his extraordinary powers of entertairnneni
in conversation. From the castle to the cottage, every door flew open at
his approach ; and the old system of hospitality, Uien flourishing, rendered
it difficult for the most soberly inclined guest to rise from any man*8 board
in the same trim that he sat down to it. The farmer, if Burns was seen
passing, left his reapers, and trotted by the side of Jenny Geddes, until
he could persuade the bard that the day was hot enough to demand an
extra-libation. If he entered an inn at midnight, after all the inmates
were in bed, the news of liis arrival circulated from the cellar to the garret;
and ere ten minutes had elapsed, the landlord and ^ his guests were as-
sembled round tlie ingle ; the largest punch-bowl was produced ; and
'^ Be ours this night — who knows what comes to-morrow ?**
was the language of every eye in the circle that welcomed him. The
stateliest gentry of the county, whenever they had especial merriment in
LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. lxxx?u
view, called in the wit and eloquence of Burns to enliven their carousals.*
The famous song of The Whittle qf^ xcoriJi commemorates a scene of this
Idndy more picturesque in some o^ its circumstances than every day oc-
curred, yet strictly in character with the usual tenor of life among this jo-
vial Bqmrtarcky. Three gentlemen of ancient descent, had met to deter-
mine, by a solemn drinking match, who should possess tJie WhUtle, which
a common ancestor of them all had earned ages before, in a Bacchanalian
contest o£ the same sort with a noble toper from Denmark ; and the poet
was summoned to watch over and celebrate the issue of the debate.
^^ Then up roM the bard like a prophet in drink,
Crai^jdarroch shall soar when creation xhall sink ;
But i( thou would*Kt flourifJ) immortal in rhyme.
Come, one bottle more, and have at the subume.**
Kor, as has already been hinted, was he safe from temptations of this kind,
«ven when he was at home, and most disposed to enjoy in quiet the socie-
ty €£ his wife and children. Lion-gazers from all quarters beset him ; they
and drank at his cost, and oden went away to criticise him and his
as if they had done Bums and his black boiol f great honour in con-
descending to be entertained for a single evening, with such company and
such liquor.
We have on record various glimpses of him, as he appeared while he
was half-farmer, half-exciseman ; and some of these present him in atti-
tudes and aspects, on which it would be pleasing to dwell. For example,
tile circumstances under which the verses on The wounded Hare were
written, are mentioned generally by the poet himself. James Thomson,
■cm of the occupier of a farm adjoining Elliesland, told Allan Cunningham,
that it was he who wounded the animal. <' Burns,'* said this person, <* was
in the custom, when at home, of strolling by himself in the twilight every
evening, along the Nith, and by the march between his land and ours.
The hares often came and nibbled our wheat braird ; and once, in the
gloaming, — it was in April, — I got a shot at one, and wounded her : she ran
Ueeding by Burns, who was pacing up and down by himself, not far from
nie. He started, and with a bitter curse, ordered me out of his sight, or
he would throw me instantly into the Nith. And had I stayed. 111 war*
rant he would have been as good as his word — though I was both young
and strong."
Among otlier curious travellers who found their way about this time to
Elliesland, was Captain Grose, the celebrated antiquarian, whom Bums
briefly describes as
'^ A fine fat fodgel wight —
Of stature short, but genius bright ;**
and who has painted his own portrait, both with pen and pencil, at full
length, in his OUo. This gentleman's taste and pursuits are ludicrously set
forth in the copy of verses —
* These particulars are from a letter of Darid Macculloch, Esc^., who, being at this period
a very young man, a nassionate admirer of Bums^ and a capital amger of manv of his serious
foogs, used often, in nis enthusiasm, to accompany the poet on his profescionaJ excursions.
-f Bums*s famous black punch-bowl, of Inverary marble, was the nuptial gift of Mr. Ar-
BMur, his father-in-law, who himself fashioned it. After passing through many hands, it is
in exoeilent keeping, that of Alexander Uastie, Esq. ox Londoii.
Injtviii . LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS.
^ Rmt, liMd o* Cakes and blither 8coU,
Fhie Maidenkirk to John O'Oroata,
A cfaield*s amang ye takxn* notet,** &c.
and, iiUer aUa^ his love of port is not forgotten. Grose and Bums had too
much in common, not to become great friends. The poet^s accurate know«
kdge of Scottish phraseology and customs, was of great use to the re*
searches of the humourous antiquarian ; and, above Hdl, it is to their ac-
quaintance that we owe Tom o* Sftanier, Bums told die story as he had
heard it in Ayrshire, in a letter to the Captain, and was easily persuaded
to venify it. The poem was the work of one day ; and Mrs. Burns well re-
members the circumstances. He spent most of the day on his favourite walk
by the river, where, in the afternoon, slie joined him with some of her
children. '< He was busily engaged croonitig to himM^ and Mrs. Bums
perceiving that her presence was an interruption, loitered behind with her
little ones among the broom. Her attention was presently attracted by the
strange and wild gesticulations of the bard, who, now at some distance,
was offonized with an ungovemable access of joy. He was reciting very
loud, and with the tears rolling down his cheeks, those animated verses
which he had just conceived : —
" Now Tam ! O Tarn ! had thc^ been queans,
A' plump and strappin' in their teens ;
Their sarkit, instead of creeshie flannen.
Been cnaw-white 9cventeen-hunder *linen, —
Thir breeks o* mine, mv onlir pair.
That aoce were plush o gooa blue hair,
I wad hae ffi*en them ofT njy hiirdies.
For M blink o* the bonnie burdiea !** f
To the last Burns was of opinion that 7am o* Shanier was the best of
all his productions ; and although it does not always happen that poet and
public come to the same conclusion on such points, I believe the decision in
question has been all but unanimously approved of. The admirable execu-
tion of the piece, so far as it goes, leaves nothing to w-ish for ; the only cri«
ticism has been, that the catastrophe appears unworthy of the preparation.
Burns lays the scene of this renuu'kablc performance almost on the spot
where he was bom ; and all the terrific circumstances by which he has
marked the progress of Tam's midnight journey, are drawn ffom local tra«
dition.
'^ Rv this time he was croM the ford
>Vhare in the snaw the chapman smoor*d,
And past the birks and meikle atane,
Whare drucken Charlie brak's neck-bane ;
And through the whins, and by the cairn,
Whare hunter's fand the murdered bairn ;
And near the thom, aboon the well, *
Mliare 3Iungo*s mither hang*d herseU.**
None of these tragic memoranda were derived from imagination. Nor was
Tam o* Shanter himself an imaginary character. Shanter is a farm close
to Kirkoswald's, that , smuggling village, in which Burns, when nineteen
years old, studied mensuration, and <' first became acquainted with scenes
of swaggering riot.*' 'i'he then occupier of Shanter, by name Douglas
• '* The manufacturer's term for a fine linen, woven on a reed of 1 700 divisions.'*— CrwwrAr.
+ The above is quoted from a MS. Journal of Cromek. Wr. M^Diarmid confirms the
atatemcnt, and adds, that the poet, having committed the verses to writing on the top oi hit
9oi»dyke over the water, came into the house, and read them immediate! v m high triumph at
ths flffiklc
LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. Ixxxix
GnJiame, was, by all accounts, equally what the Tarn Wtho poet appears,
<— a jolly> careless, rustic, who took much more interest in the contrabanj
traffic of the coast, than the rotation of crops. Burns knew the man well ;
and to his dying day, he, nothing loath, passed among his rural compeersi
hy the name of Tani o' Shanter.
A few words will bring us to the close of Burns's career at Elliesland*
Mr. Ramsay of Ochtcrtyre, happening to pass through Nithsdale in 1790,
met Burns riding rapidly near Closeburn. The poet was obliged to pursue
his professional journey, but sent on Mr. Ramsay and his fellow-traveller
to Elliesland, where he joined them as soon as his duty permitted him,
saying, as he entered, ** I come, to use the words of Shakspeare, ittetaed
m haste.'* Mr^ Ramsay was " much pleased with his uxor «Sa/>im/ qvalii^
and his modest mansion, so unlike the habitation of ordinary rustics."
The evening was spent delightfully. A gentleman of dry temperament,
who looked in accidentally, soon partook the contagion, and sat listen*
ing to Bums with the tears running over his cheeks. " Poor Burns!" says.
Mr. Ramsay, ** from that time I met him no more.*'
The summer after, some English travellers, calling at Elliesland, were
told that the poet was walking by the river. They proceeded in search ot
him, and presently, " on a rock that projected into the stream, they saw
a man employed in angling, of a singular appearance. He had a cap made
of a fox's skin on his head ; a loose great-coat, fastened round him by a
belt, from which depended an enormous Highland broadsword. It was
Burns. He received them with great cordiality, and asked them to share
his humble dinner." These travellers also classed the evening they spent
at Elliesland with the brightest of their lives.
Towards the close of 1791, the poet, finally despairing of his farm, de-
termined to give up his lease, which the kindness of his landlord rendered
easy of arrangement ; and procuring an appointment to the Dumfries divi-
sion, which raised his salary from the revenue to £10 per annuiti, removed
his family to the county town, in which he terminated his days. His con-
duct as an excise officer had hitherto met with uniform approbation ; and
he nourished warm hopes of being promoted, when he had thus avowedly
devoted himself altogether to the service. He lefl Elliesland, however,
with a heavy heart. The affection of his neighbours was rekindled in all its
early fervour by the thoughts of parting with him ; and the roup of his
farming-stock and other effects, was, in spite of whisky, a very melancholy
scene. The competition for his chatties was eager, each being anxious to
secure a memorandum of Burns's residence among them. It is pleasing to
know, that among other " titles manifold" to their respect and gratitude,
Bums had superintended the formation of a subscription library in the parish.
His letters to the booksellers on this subject do him much honour : his
choice of authors (which business was naturally left to his discretion) being
in the highest degree judicious. 8uch institutions are now common, almost
universal, indeed, in all the rural districts of southern Scotland : but it
should never be forgotten that Burns was among the first, if not the very
first, to set the example. ** He was so good," says Mr. Riddel, " as to
take the whole management of this concern ; he was treasurer, librarian,
and censor, to our little society, who will long have a grateful sense of his
public spirit, and exertions for their improvement and information." Once,
and only once, did Burns quit his residence at Elliesland to revisit Edin-
burgh. His object was* to close accounts with Creech j that business ac
H
xe LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS.
■ •
oompUiIiedy he returned immediately, and he never again saw the cafntal.
He that writes to Mrs. Dunlop : — «* To a man who has a home, however
humble and remote, if that home is, like mine, the scene <^ domestic corn-
forty the bustle of Edinburgh will soon be a business of sickening disgust-*
^ Vain pomp and glor of the woild, I hate job !**
** When I must skulk into a comer, lest the rattling equipage of some gsp-
ing blockhead should mangle me in the mire, I am tempted to exclaim,
what merits had he had, or what demerits have I had, m some state of
pre*existence, tliat he is ushered into this state of being with the sceptre
of rule, and the key of riches in his puny fist, and I kicked into the world,
the sport of folly or the victim of pride • • • . oflen as I have glided with
humble stealth through the pomp of Prince's Street, it lias suggested itself
to me as an improvement on the present human figure, that a man, in pro*
portion to his own conceit of his consequence in the world, could have
Ched out the longitude of his common size, as a snail pushes out his
ns, or as we draw out a perspective.**
CHAPTER Vlir.
CoxTBNT<:. — It more beset in tnwn than eounfjy — Hig early hiographm^ {Dr, Citrrie m^ csw
cepttd)^ hiive coloured too thtrkhj under that head — Ti i» not correct to *peak of the poei aa
Mavinp mttk into a toper, or n solitary drinker^ or ofhi» rerel* an other than oecanonaU <rr of
their having iHtrrftii-d tnth the puttctttat dischnrce of his rjjicinl dntiea — lie it thnwn to
have. /xrrN the aJfectiuKO/e and ItKloced huf.handy nlt'iouyh pm^smp fJliet impnted ; and tho
couttant and nuttt nsniduong instructor nf his ihildien — Inipulsts if the Frencft RewUutioH
— StfMptoms fffratrrniziiin — The atttntion of h'>» rfUciaf superiors is called to them-^Prat-
ticafly no blow is infiictrti^ only the bud name — fntereslinp details of this period^-^GittM hia
whole sohl to tony tnaking-^Preftrenee in i/iat for his uativt dialect^ with the Other attauU
mntfactt^ at to that portion of hit intmortul luyt.
" The King** mo&t humble ftervant, I
Can scarcely spare a minute;
But I am yours nt dinner-time.
Or else the devil's in it." •
Tub four principal biographers of our poet, Heron, Currie, Walker, and
Irving, concur in the general statement, that his moral course from the
time when he settled in Dumfries, was downwards. Heron knew more of
the matter personally than any of the others, and his words are these :—
** In Dumfries his dissipation became still more deeply habitual. He was
here exposed more than in the country, to be solicited to share the riot
of the dissolute and the idle. Foolish young men, such as ^vriters* ap«
jHrentices, young surgeons, .merchants' clerks, and his brother excise*
Biien» flocked eagerly about him, and from time to time pressed him to
drink with them, that they might enjoy his wicked wit. The Caledonian
Club, too, and the Dumfries and Galloway Hunt, had occasional meet«
ings in Dumfries after Burns came to reside there, and the poet was of
course invited to share their hospitality, and hesitated not to accept the
invitation. The morals of the town were, in consequence of its becom«
ing so much the scene of public amusement, not a little corrupted, and
though a husband and a father, Burns did not escape suffering by the gene-
ral contamination, in a manner which I forbear to describe. In the inter-
vals between his different fits of intemperance, he suffered the keenest an-
guish of remorse and horribly afflictive foresight. His Jean behaved with
a degree of maternal and conjugal tenderness and prudence, which made
him feel more bitterly the evils of his misconduct, though they could not
reclaim him." — This picture, dark as it is, wants some distressing shades
that mingle in the parallel one by Dr. Currie ; it wants nothing, however,
of which truth demands the insertion. That Burns, dissipated, ere he vent
to Dumfries, became still more dissipated in a town, than he had been in
the country, is certain, . It may also be true, that his wife had her own
* '* The above answer to an Uivitation was written extempore on a leaf torn from his £x«
OM-lwok.^CromeA-'j MSS ^
Xcii LIFE OF ROHKRT BITRN-.^.
particular causofi, sometimes, for dissatisfaction. But that Bums ever sunk
into a toper — that he ever was addicrtcd to solitary drinking — that his bot-
tle ever interfered with his dischartrc of his duties as an exciseman— or
that, in spite of some transitory follies, he ever ceased to be a most affec-
tionate husband — all these charges have been insinuated — and they are all
fnhe. His intemperance was, as Heron says, injits; his aberrations of all
kinds were occasional, not systematic ; they were all to himself the sources
of exquisite misery in the retrospect ; they were the aberrations of a man
whose moral sense was never deadened ; — of one who encountered more
temptations from without and from within, than the immense majority of
mankind, far from having to contend against, are even able to imagine ; —
of one, finally, who prayed ibr pardon, wliere alone eifectual pardon could
be found ;— «nd who died ere he had reached that term of life up to which
the passions of many, who, their mortal career being regarded as a whole,
are honoured as among the most virtuous of mankind, have proved too
strong for the control of reason. We have already seen that the poet was
careful of decorum in all things during the brief space of his prosperity at
Elliesland, and that he became less so on many points, as the prospects of
his farming speculation darkened around him. It seems to be equally certain,
that he entertained high hopes of promotion in the excise at the period of
his removal to Dumfries ; and that the comparative recklessness of his
later con^luct there, was consequent on a certain overclouding of these pro-
fessional expectations. The case is brcKully stated so by Walker and Paul ;
and there are hints to tlic same eifect in the Jiarrative of Currie. The
statement has no doubt been exaggerated, but it has its foundation in truth ;
and by the kindness of Mr. Train, supervisor at Castle Douglas in Gallo-
way, I shall presently be enabled to give some details which may tlirow
light on this business.
Burns was much patronised when in Edinburgh by the Honourable Henry
Erskine, Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, and other leading Whigs of
the place — much more so, to their honour be it said, than by any o\' the
influential adherents of the then administration. His landlord at Ellies-
land, Mr. Miller of Dalswinton, his neighbour. Mr. lliddel of Friars- Carse*
and most of the other gentlemen who showed him special attention, belong-
ed to the same political party ; and, on his removal to Dumfries, it so hap-
pened, that some of his immediate superiors in the revenue service of the
district, and other persons of standing authority, into whose society he was
thrown, entertained sentiments of the siimc desqription. Burns, whenever
in his letters he talks seriously of political matters, uniformly describes his
early jacobitism as mere '' matter of fancy." It may, however, be easily
believed, tliat a fancy like his, long indulged in dreams of that sort, was
well prepared to pass into certain otlier dreams, which likewise involved
feelings of dissatisfaction with '' the existing order of things." Many of
the old elements of political disaffection in Scotland, put on a new shape at
tlie outbreaking of Uie French Kevolution ; and Jacobites became half jaco-
bins, ere they were at all aware in what the doctrines of jacobinism were
to end. The Whigs naturally regarded the first dawn of freedom in France
with feelings of sympathy, delight, exultation. The general, the all but
universal tone of feeling was favourable to 'the first assailants of the Bour-
bon despotism ; and there were few who more ardently participated in the
general sentiment of the day than Burns. The revulsion of feeling that
took place in this country at lar^, when wanton atrocities began to stain
UVE OF ROBERT fiURNS- xaJi
the course of the French Revolution, and Burke lifted his powerful voice^
was great. Scenes more painful at the time, and more so even now in the
tetrospecty than had for generations afflicted Scotland, were the conse*
quences of the rancour into which party feelings on both sides now rose and
fermented. Old and dear ties of friendship were torn in sunder ; society
was for a tiipe shaken to its centre. In the most extravagant dreams of
the Jacobites there had always been much to command respect, high chi-
valrous devotion, reverence for old affections, ancestral loyalty, and the
generosity of romance. In the new species of hostility, every thing seemed
mean as well as perilous ; it was scorned even more than hated. The very
name stained whatever it came near ; and men that had known and loved
each other from boyhood, stood aloof, if this influence intei*fe,red, as if it
had been some loathsome pestilence.
There was a great deal of stately Toryism at this time in the town of
Dumfries, which was the favourite winter retreat of many of the best gen-
tlemen's families of the south of Scotland. Feelings that worked more
violently in Edinburgh than 'in London, acquired additional energy stiil, in
this provincial capital. All men's eyes were upon Burns. He was the
standing marvel of the place ; his toasts, his jokes, his epigrams, his songs,
were tlie daily food of conversation and scandal ; and he, open and care-
less, and thinking he did no great harm in saying and singing what many
of his superiors had not the least objection to hear and applaud, soon be-
gan to be considered among the local admirers and disciples of King George
the Third and his minister, as the most dangerous of all the apostles of se-
dition,— and to be shunned accordingly. ^
The records of the Excise-Office are silent concerning the suspicions
which the Commissioners of the time certainly took up in regard to Burnt
as a political offender — according to the phraseology of the tempestuous
period, a democrat. In that department, as then conducted, I am assured
that nothing could have been more unlike the usual course of things, than
that one syllable should have been set down in writing on such a subject,
unless the case had been one of extremities. That an inquiry was insti-
tuted, we know from Burns's own letters — but what the exact termination
of the inquiry was, will never, in all probability, be ascertained. Accord-
ing to the tradition of the neighbourhood. Burns, inter alia, gave great of-
fence by demurring in a large mixed company to the proposed toast, •* the
health of William Pitt ;*' and left tlie room in indignation, because the so-
ciety rejected what he wished to substitute, namely, " the health of a
greater and a better man, George Washington." 1 suppose the warmest
admirer of Mr. Pitt's talents and politics would hardly venture now-a-days
to dissent substantially from Burns's estimate of the comparative merits of
tliese two great men. The name of Washington, at all events, when con-
temporary passions shall have finally sunk into the peace of the grave, will
unquestionably have its place in the first rank of heroic virtue, — a station
which demands the exhibition of victory pure and unstained over tempta-
tions and trials extraordinary, in kind as well as strength. But at the time
when Bums, being a servant of Mr. Pitt's government, was guilty of this
indiscretion, it is obvious that a great deal ** more was meant than reached
the car." In the poet's own correspondence, we have traces of another oc-
currence of the same sort. Bums thus writes to a gentleman at whose
table he had dined the day before : — ** I was, I know, drunk last night, but
I am sober this morning. From the expressions Captain ■ ■■ ■ made use
*ȴ L1F2 0? ROBERT BURN*S.
of to me, liad I had nobody's welfare to care for but my own, we should
certftbly have come, according to the manner of the world, to the necet-
fity of murdering one another about the busincts* The words were such
as generai]y> I believe, end in a brace of pistols ; but J am still pleased to
think that I did not ruin the peace and welfare of a wife and children in
a drunken squabble. Farther, you know that the report of certain political
opinions being mine; has already once before brought me to the brink of
destruction. I dread last night's business may be interpreted in the same
way. You, I beg, will take care to prevent it. I tax your wish for Mrs.
Bums*s welfare with the task of waiting on every gentleman who was pre-
lent to state this to him ; and, as you ple&se, show this letter. What, af-
ter all, was the obnoxious toast ? May our success in the present war be equal
to the justice of our cause — a toast that the most outrageous frenzy of loyalty
cannot object to." — Bums, no question, was guilty o£ unpoliteness as well
as indiscretion, in offering any such toasts as these in mixed company ; but
that such toasts should have been considered as attaching any grave sus-
picion to his character as a loyal subject, is a circumstance which can only
be accounted for by reference to the exaggerated state of political feelings
on all matters, and among all descriptions of men, at that melancholy pe-
riod of disaffection, distrust, and disunion. Who, at any other period than
that lamentable time, would ever have dreamed of erecting the drinking*
or declining to drink, the health of a particular minister, or the approving,
or disapproving, of a particular measure of government, into the test of a
man's loyalty ^to his King ?
Burns, eager of temper, loud of tone, and wiUi declamation and sarcasm
equally at command, was, we may easily believe, the most hated of human
beings, because the most dreaded, among the provincial champions of the
administration of which he thought fit to disapprove. But that he ever, in
his most ardent moods, upheld the principles of those whose applause of
the French Revolution was but the mask of revolutionary designs at home,
afler these principles had been really developed by those that maintained
them, and understood by him, it may be saJfely denied. There is not, in
all his correspondence, one syllable to give countenance to such a charge.
His indiscretion, however, did not always confine itself to words ; and
though an incident now about to be recorded, belongs to the year 1792»
before the French war broke out, there is reason to believe that it formed
the main subject of the inquiry which the Excise Commissioners thought
* themselves called upon to institute touching the politics of our poet.
At that period a great deal of contraband traffic, chiefly from the Isle of
Man, was going on along the coasts of Galloway and A)Tshirc, and the
whole o£ the revenue officers from Gretna to Dumfries, were placed under
the orders of a superintendent residing in Annan, who exerted himself
zealously in intercepting the descent of the smuggling vessels. On the
27th o£ February, a suspicious-looking brig was discovered in the Solway
Frith, and Burns was one of the party whom the superintendent conducted
to watch her motions. She got into shallow water the day afterwards, and
the officers were enabled to discover that her crew were numerous, armed,
and not likely to yield without a struggle. Lewars, a brother exciseman,
an intimate friend of our poet, was accordingly sent to Dumfries for a
guard of dragoons ; the superintendent, Mr. Crawford, proceeded himself
on a similar errand to Ecclefechan, and Bums was left witli some men un-
der bis orders, to watch the brig, and prevent landing or escape. From
tIPE OF ROBERT BURKS. xe?
dii private Journal of one of the excisemen, (now in my hands), it appeara
that Bums manifested considerable impatience while thus occupied* being
left for many hours in a wet salt-marsh, with a force which he knew to be
inadequate for the purpose it was meant to fulfil. One of his oomradet
liearing him abuse his firiend Lewars in particular, for being slow about his
journey, the man answered, that he also wished the devil had him for bit
paint, and that Bums, in the meantime, would do well to indite a song upon
the sluggard : Bums said nothing ; but after taking a few strides by himself
Ipnong the reeds and shingle, rejoined his party, and chanted to them thia
well-known ditty : —
** The de*a cam* flddline thro* tht town.
And danced awa* wi* tne Exdaeman ;
And ilk auld wife crjM, ^ Auld Mahoun,
* We wiah you luck o* the prize, man.
Cnoaua.— ^ Well mak* our maut^ and brew our drink,
^ We*II dance and ting and rejoice, man ;
* And monj thanks to the muckle black dt^
^ That danc*d awa* wi* the Exciseman.
* There*s threesome reels, and foursome reels,
* Thcre*8 hornpipes and strathspeys, man ;
^ But the ae best dance e*er cam* to our Ian*,
« Was the deil*s awa* wi* the Exciseman.* **
Lewars arrived shortly afterwards with his dragoons ; and Bums, putting
himself at their head, waded, sword in hand, to the brig, and was the first to
board her. The crew lost heart, and submitted, though their numbers were
greater than those of the assailing force. The vessel was condemned, and,
with all her arms and stores, sold by auction next day at Dumfries : upon
which occasion Bums, whose behaviour had been highly commended,
thought fit to purchase four carronades, by way of trophy. But his glee
went a step farther ; — ^he sent the guns, with a letter, to the French Con-
vention, requesting that body to accept of them as a mark of his admiration
and respect, llie present, and its accompaniment, were intercepted at the
custom-house at Dover ; and here, there appears to be little room to doubt,
was the principal circumstance that drew on Bums the notice of his jealous
superiors. We were not, it is true, at war with France ; but every one
knew and felt that we were to be so ere long ; and nobody can pretend
that Bums was not guilty, on this occasion, of a most absurd and presump-
tuous breach of decorum. When he leamed the impression that had been
created by his conduct, and its probable consequences, he wrote to his pa-
tron, Mr. Graham of Fin tray, the following letter, dated December 1792 :
« Sir,-*! have been surprised, confounded, and distracted by Mr. Mit-
chell, the collector, telling me that he has received an order from your
board to inquire into my political conduct, and blaming me as a person
disaffected to government. Sir, you are a husband and a father. You
know what you would feel to see the much-loved wife of your bosom, and
your helpless, prattling little ones turned adrifl into the world, degraded
and disgraced, from a situation in which they had been respectable and re-
apected, and left almost without the necessary support of a miserable exist-
ence. Alas ! Sir, must I think that such soon will be my lot ? and from the
damned dark insinuations of hellish, groundless envy too ? I believe, Sir, I
ipay aver it, and jn the sight of Omniscience, that I would pot tell a dcli«
tevi LIFE OF tlOBERt fiUftNS.
berate falsehood,* no, not though even worse horrors, if worse tan te» thin
tliose I have mentioned, hung over my head. And I saj that the allega*
lion, whatever villain has made it, is a lie. To the British ConstitutUMif
on revolution principles, next, after my God, I am most devoutlv attach«d«
You, Sir, have been much and generously my friencL Heaven knows how
warmly I have felt the obligation, and how gratefully I have thanked you.
Fortune, Sir, has made you powerful, and me impotent ; has given you pa-
tronage, and me dependence. I would not, for my single self, call on your
humanity : were such my insular, unconnected situation, I would disperse
the tear that now swells in my eye ; I could brave misfortune ; I could fkoe
ruin ; at the worst, < death's thousand doors stand open.' But, good God I
the tender concerns tliat I have mentioned, the claims and ties that I see
at Uiis moment, and feel around me, how they unnerve courage and wither
resolution ! To your patronage, as a man of some genius, you have allowed
me a claim ; and your esteem, as an honest man, I know is my due. To
these, Sir, permit me to appeal. By these may I adjure you to save me
from that misery which threatens to overwhelm nic ; and which, with my
latest breath, I will say 1 have not deserved !'*
On the 2d of January, (a week or two al tcrwards), we find him writing to
Mrs, Dunlop in these terms : — *• Mr. C. can be of little service to me at
present ; at least, 1 should be sliy of applying. I cannot probably be set-
tled as a supervisor for several years. 1 n)ust wait tlie rotation of lists,
&'C. Besides, some envious malicious devil has raised a little demur on my
political principles, and I wish to let that niattcT settle before 1 offer my-
self too much in tlie eye of my superiors. 1 have set henceforth a se;U on
my lips, as to these unlucky politics ; but to you I must breailie my senti-
ments. In this, as in every thing else, I shall show the undisguised emo-
tions of my soul. War, 1 deprecate : misery and ruin to thousands arc in
the blast that announces the destructive demon. But "
" The remainder of this letter," says Cromek, " has been torn away by
some barbarous hand.'' — There can be little doubt that it was torn away by
one of the kindeot hands in the world, that of Mrs. Dunlop herself, and
from the most praise-worth motive.
The exact result of the Excise Board's investigation is hidden, as lias
been said above, in obscurity ; nor is it at all likely that the cloud will be
withdrawn hereafler. A general impression, however, appears to have
gone forth, that the affair terminated in something which Burns himselt
considered as tantamount to tlie destruction of all hope of future promo-
tion in his profession ; and it has been insinuated by almost every one of
his biographers, that the crushing of these hopes operated unhappily, even
fatally, on the tone of his mind, and, in consequence, on the habits of his
life. In a word, the early deatli of Bums has been (by implication at least)
ascribed mainly to the circumstances in question. Even Sir Walter Soott
has distinctly intimated his acquiescence in this prevalent notion. *' The
political predilections," says he, *' for they could hardly be termed princi-
ples, of Bums, were entirely determined by his feelings. At his first ap-
pearance, he felt, or affected, a propensity to Jacobitism. Indeed, a youth
of his warm imagination in Scotland thirty years ago, could hardly esci^
. this bias. The side of Charles Edward was that, not surely of sound sense
and sober reason, but of romantic gallantry and high achievement. The
inadequacy of the means by which that prince attempted to regain the
oroim forfeited by his fathers; the Strang and ahnost poetical adventurai
LIFE OP ROBERT BURNS. Wfti
which he underwent, — the Scottish martial character, honoured hi hit vic^
tories, and degraded and crushed in his defeat, — the tales of the veterana
who had followed his adventurous standard, were all calculated to impreei
upon the mind of a poet a warm interest in the cause of the House of
Stuart. Yet the impression was not of a very serious cast ; for Bums him**
self acknowledges in one of his letters, (Reliques, p. 240), that * to tell
the matter of fact, except when my passions were heated by some acci-
dental cause, my Jacobitism was merely by way of vive la bagaJtdle,* The
same enthusiastic ardour of disposition swayed Burns in his choice of poli-
tical tenets, when the country was agitated by revolutionary principles.
That the poet should have chosen the side on which high talents were
most likely to procure celebrity ; that he to whom the fastidious distinc-
tions of society were aln-ays odious, should have listened with complin
tence to the voice of French philosophy, which denounced them as Usui^
{Mitions on the rights of man, was precisely the thing to be expected. Yet
we cannot but think, that if his superiors in the Excise department htti
tried the experiment of soothing rather than irritating his feelings, ihejr
might have spared themselves the disgrace of rendering desperate the pos-
sessor of such uncommon talents. For it is btU too certain^ that from tht
moment his hopes of promotion were utterly blasted, his tendency to dii-
sipation hurried him precipitately into those excesses which shortened hit
life. We doubt not, that in that awful period of national discord, he had
done and said enough to deter, in ordinary cases, the servants of govera-
nent from countenancing an avowed partizan of faction. But this partizatt
was Bums ! Surely the experiment of lenity might have been tried, and
perhaps successfully. The conduct of Mr. Graham of Fintray, our poet*t
only shield against actual dismission and consequent ruin, reflects the high-
est credit on that gentleman."
In the general strain of sentiment in this passage, who can refuse to
concur ? but I am bound to say, that after a careful examination of all the
documents, printed and MS., to which I have had access, I have great
doubts as to some of the principal facts assumed in this eloquent state-
ment« I have before me, for example, a letter of Mr. Findlater, formerly
Collector at Glasgow, who was, at the period in question, Bums*s imme-
diate superior in the Dumfries district, in which that very respectable per-
son distinctly says : — " 1 may venture to assert, that when Bums was ac-
cused of a leaning to democracy, and an inquiry into his conduct took
place, he was subjected, in consequence thereof, to no more than perhant
n verbal or private caution to be more circumspect in future. Neither do
I believe his promotion was thereby affected, as has been stated. That,
liad he lived, would, I have every reason to think, have gone on in thfe
Wioal routine. His good and steady friend Mr. Graham would have attended
to this. What cause, therefore, was there for depression of spirits on thift
Mconnt ? or how should he have been hurried thereby to a premature
grave ? /never saw his spirit fail till he was borne down by the pressure
of disease and bodily weakness ; and even then it would occasionally revitc^
vnd like an expiring lamp, emit bright flashes to the last."
When the war had fairly broken out, a battalion of volunteers was fbrm-
«d in Dumfries, and Burns was an original member of the corps. It it
Ycry true that his accession was objected to by some of his neighboura ;
tet these were over- ruled by the gentlemen who took the lead in the huA^
IMtty Md the poet toon became^ as might have been espected^ the gfMl^
XctiB LIFE OP ROBERT BimNS.
est pogsible fkvoarite with his brothers in arms. His cotniiilUiding offid6r»
Colonel De Pejrster, attests his zealous discharge of his duties as a mem*
ber of the corps ; and their attachment to him was on the increase to the
last. He was their laureate, and in that capacity did more good service to
the government of the country, at a crisis of the darkest aJarm and dan-
ger, than perhaps any one person of his rank and station, with the ex*
ception of Dibdin, had the power or the inclination to render. << Bums,**
says Allan Cunningham, *< was a zealous lover of his country, and has
stamped his patriotic feelings in many a lasting verse }lis poor and
Jtonesi Sodger laid hold at once on the public feeling, and it was everr*
where sung with an enthusiasm which only began to abate when Campbell's
£xile of Erin and Wounded Hussar were published. Dumfries, whidi
sent so many of her sons to the wars, rung with it from port to port ; and
the poet, wherever he went, heard it echoing from house and hall. I wish
this exquisite and useful song, with SeoU wha hoe wC < Wailace bUdy — the
Song of DeaJthy and Dots luiugJUy Gaul Invasion Threaty — all lyrics which
enforce a love of country, and a martial enthusiasm into men's breasts, had
obtained some reward for the poet. His perishable conversation was re*
membered by the rich to his prejudice — his imperishable lyrics were re-
warded only by the admiration and tears of his fellow peasants."
Lastly, whatever the rebuke of the Excise Board amounted to— (Mr.
James Gray, at that time schoolmaster in Dumfries, and seeing ;nuch of
Bums both as the teacher of his children, and as a personal friend and as-
sociate of literary taste and talent, is the only person who gives any thing
like an exact statement : and according to him. Bums was admonished
** that it was his business to act, not to think") — in whatever language the
censure was clothed, the Excise Board did nothing from which Bums had
any cause to suppose that his hopes of ultimate promotion were extinguish-
ed. Nay, if he had taken up such a notion, rightly or erroneously, Mr.
Findlater, who had him constantly under his eye, and who enjoyed all hit
confidence, and who enjoyed then, as he still enjoys, the utmost confidence
of the Board, must have known the fact to be so. Such, I cannot help
thinking, is the fair view of the case : at all events, we know that Burns,
the year before he died, was permitted to oc^ as a Supervisor; a thing not
likely to have occurred had there been any resolution against promoting
him in his proper order to a permanent situation of that superior rank.
On the whole, then, I am of opinion that the Excise Board have been
dealt with harshly, when men of eminence have talked of their conduct to
Burns as affixing disgrace to them. It appears that Bums, being guiltT
unquestionably of great indiscretion and indeconun both of word and deed»
was admonished in a private manner, that at such a period of national dis-
traction, it behoved a public. officer, gifted with talents and necessarily with
influence like his, very carefully to abstain from conduct which, now that
passions have had time to cool, no sane man will say became his situation :
that Bums's subsequent conduct effaced the unfavourable impression create
ed in the minds of his superiors ; and that he had begun to taste the fruits
of their recovered approbation and confidence, ere his career was closed by
illness and death. These Commissioners of Excise were themselves sub*
ordinate officers of the govemment, and strictly responsible for those un*
der them. That they did try the experiment of lenity to a certain extent,
mppeaan to be made, out ; that they could have been justified in trying it to a
ftrtber extent, is at the least doubtfuL But with regard to the govenuneot
LIFE Of ftOB^RT BURMiI
ti the cdttntry itself, I must say I think it is much more di£ScuIt to defend
them. Mr. Pitt's ministry gave Dibdin a pension of iS200 a-year for writ-
ing his Sea Songs ; and one cannot help remembering, that when Bums did
begin to excite the ardour and patriotism of his countrymen by such songn
as Mr. Cunningham has been alluding to, there were persons who had
every opportunity of representing to the Premier the claims of a greater
than Dibdin. Lenity, indulgence, to whatever length carried in such
quarters as these, would have been at once safe and graceful. What the
minor politicians of the day thought of Burns*s poetry I know not ; but
Mr. Pitt himself appreciated it as highly as any man. << I can think of
no verse," said the great Minister, when Burns was no more — " I can think
of no verse since Shakspeare*s, that has so much the appearance of com-
ing sweetly from nature." *
Had Bums put forth some newspaper squibs upon Lepaiix or Camot, or
a smart pamphlet " On the State of the Country," he might have been
more attended to in his lifetime. It is common to say, '* what is every-
body's business is nobody's business ;" but one may be pardoned for think-
ing that in snch cases as this, that which the general voice of the countiy
does admit to be everybody's business, comes in fact to be the business of
those whom the«nation intrusts with national concerns.
To return to Sir Walter Scott's reviewal — it seems that he has some*
what overstated the political indiscretions of which Burns was actuallj
guilty. Let us hear the counter-statement of Mr. Gray, f who, as has al-
ready been mentioned, enjoyed Burns*s intimacy and confidence during his
residence in Dumfries. — No one who ever knew anything of that excellent
man, will for a moment suspect him of giving any other than what he be-
lieves to be true.
** Bums (says he) was enthusiastically fond of liberty, and a lover of the
popular part of our constitution ; but he saw and admired the just and de-
licate proportions of the political fabric, and nothing could be farther from
his aim than to level with the dust the venerable pile reared by the labours
and the wisdom of ages. That provision of the constitution, however, by
which it is made to contain a self-correcting principle, obtained no incon-
siderable share of his admiration : he was, therefore, a zealous advocate of
constitutional reform. The necessity of tliis he often supported in conver-
sation with all the energy of an irresistible eloquence ; but there is no evi-
dence that he ever went farther. He was a member of no political club.
At the time when, in certain societies, the mad cry of revolution was rais-
ed from one end of the kingdom to the other, his voice was never heard in
their debates, nor did he ever support their opinions in writing, or corre-
spond with' them in any form whatever. Though limited to an income
which any other man would have considered poverty, he refused £50 a-
year offered to him for a weekly article, by the proprietors of an opposition
paper ; and two reasons, equally honourable to him, induced him to reject
this proposaL His independent spirit spumed indignantly the idea of be-
* I am assured. that Mr. Pitt used these words at the table of the Ute Loid liveipoolt
soon after Bums's death. How that event might come to be a mUund topic of oooveisatioa
aitfaat table, will be seen in the sequeL
-t* Mr. Gray removed from the school of Dumixies to the High School of Edinbuxgfat in
whidi eminent seminary he for many years laboured with distinguished success. He then be-
cnM Professor of Latin in the Institution at Belfast ; he afterwards entoed into holy atdtn^
and died a few years since in the £ast Indiesi u offidatiDg chapLUn to thft CompsDj ia itm
wrwnAmtT oif IWadfiii
e LIFE OF ROBERT BURKS.
coming the hireling of a party ; and whatever may have been lus opinioii
of the men and measures that then prevailed, he did not think tt right to
fetter the operatlonn of that government by which he was employed***
The satcment about tl)e newspaper, refers to Mr. Perry of the Morning
Chronicle, who, at the suggestion of Mr. Miller of Dalswinton, made the
proposal referred to, and received for answer a letter which mav be seen
jn the General Correspondence of our poet, and the tenor of which is in
Accordance with what Mr. Gray has said. Mr. Perry afterwards pressed
Bums to settle in London as a regular writer for his paper, and the poet
declined to do so, alleging that, however small, his Excise appointment
was a certainty, which, in justice to his family, he could not think of aban •
doning. *
Burns, after the Excise inquiry, took care, no doubt, to avoid similar
■crapes ; but be had no reluctance to meddle largely and zealously in the
squabbles of county politics and contested elections ; and thus, by merely
•spousing, on all occasions, the cause of the Whig candidates, kept up very
•ffectually the spleen which the Tories had originally conceived on tolera*
bly legitimate grounds. One of the most celebrated of these effusions wal
written on a desperately contested election for the Dumfries district of
boroughs, between Sir James Johnstone of Westerhall, and Mr. Miller th«
younger of Dalswinton ; Burns, of course, maintaining the caulb of hii pa*
tron*8 family. Tliere is much humour in it : —
•
THE FIVE CARLINES.
1. There were five carlinci in the south, thejr fell upon a scheme^
To send a Isd to Lunnun town to bring them tidings hune,
Nor only bring them tidings hame, but do their errands there.
And aiblins gowd and honour baith might be that laddie*t thtft.
2. There was Maggy by the banks o* Nith, f a dame w* ptide entii|li«
And Manor} o' the Monylodis, ± a carline auld and teugh ;
And blinkin Bess o* Annandale, § that dwelt near 8olway-dde,
t. To fend a lad to Lunnun town, they met upon a day.
And many a knu^ht and mony a laird their errand fain wad gae.
But nae ane could their fancy please ; O ne*er a ane but tway.
i. The firrt he was a belted knight, ** bred o* a border dan.
And he wad gae to Limnun town, might nae man him withatan%
And he wad do their errands wcel, and meikle he wad say.
And ilka ane at Lunnun court would bid to him gude day.
bk Hie next came in a sodger youths -ff and spak wi* modest gnwe,
And he wad gae to Lunnun town, if sae their pleasure wai ;
He wadna hecht them courtlv gifts, nor meikle speodi pretend.
But he wad hecht an honest neart, wad ne*er desert a friend.
8. Now, wham to chooiie and wham refuse, at strife thir omUbcs Mf
For some had gentle folks to please, and some wad please thtmseD.
7> Then out spak mim-mou*d Meg o* Nith, and she spak up wi* pride^
^\nd she wad send tlie soducr youth, whatever might bedde ;
For the auld guidman o* Lunnun Xt ^o^^ "he didna cate s pin ;
But she wad send the sodger youth to greet his eldest son. jg
* This li stated on the authority of Major Miller.
iDanMei. ± Lacfamaben. i Amum. 0 KlihiiittlMb
taqubtr. ^ *• Sir J. Johnstooe. tt MiAw MIto,
^ Oforge HI. 9S The WncfSr WflS.
LIFE OP ROBERT BURVi. cl
i. Thm vp cmrang Ben e* Annandale, and a deadly atth abe*i t«Mi,
Tliat aha wad vota the border knight, though aha should Tote htr lana ;
y«r far-aff fowli hae feathers flur> and foou o* change are fain {
Bui I haa tried the border knight, and Fll try him yet again.
9. 8aja bUek Joan frae Crichton PeeU a cariine stoor and gpm^
The auld guidman, and the young guidman, for mc may sink or awim ;
For Ibola will freat o* right or wning, while knaven laugh them to aeon ;
But tbf iodgey*a irienda nae blawn the beat, so he ahaU bear the horn.
lA. Then whisky Jean apak ower her drink. Ye weel ken. kimmen a*.
The auld guidman o* Lunnun court, he*a backus been at toe wa* i
And mony a friend that kiss*t his cup, i» now a freroit wight,
But it*8 ne*er be said o* whisky Jean— 1*11 send the border knight.
11. Then slow raise Marjory o* the liochs, and wrinkled waa her brow, _ ^
Her ancient weed wan rusi^t ^y, her auld Scots bluid was true ; ' *"
There*s some great folkH bet hght by me, — 1 set aa light by them ;
But I will sen to Lunnun toun wham 1 like best at name.
19. Sae how this weighty plea may end, nae mortal wight con tell,
God grant the King and ilka man may look weel to himselL
The above is far the best humoured of these productions. The election
to which it refers was carried in Major Miller's favour, but afler a levert
contest, and at a very heavy expense.
These political conflicts .were not to be mingled in with impunity by the
chosen laureate, wit, and orator of the district. lie himself, in an uopub^
liahed piece, speaks of the terror excited by
" _— — Rumii*s venom, when
He dipH in gall unniix*d his eager pen.
And iH)urs his vengeance in the burning line;**
and represents his victims, on one of these electioneering occasions, ai
leading a choral shout that
^^ . He for Ins heresies in church and state,
flight richly merit .Muii*:t and Palmer's late.**
But what rendered him more and more the object of aversion to one set of
people, was sure to connect him more strongly with the passions^ and, un«
fortunately for himself and ior us, witli the pleasures of the other ; and wo
have, among many confessions to the same purpose, the following, which I
quote as the shortest, in one of the poet's letters from Dumfries to Mrs.
Dunlon. •* I am better, but not quite free of my complaint (he refers to
the palpitation of heart.) You must not think, us you seem to insinuate*
that in my way of life I want exercise. Of that I have enough ; but occa*
sional hard drmking is the devil to me.** He knew well what he was doing
whenever he mingled in such debaucheries : he had, long ere this, describ*
ed himself as parting <* with a slice of his constitution" every time he waa
guilty of such excess.
This brings us back to a subject on which it can give no one pleasure to
expatiate.
•* Dr. Currie," says Gilbert Burns, " knowing the events of the latter
years of rov brother's life, only from the reports which had been propagat*
ed, and thinking it necessary, lest the candour of his work should be called
in question, to state the substance of these reports, has given a very exag*
geratedTiew of the failings of my brother's life at that period, which is cer-
tainly to be regretted.** — •* 1 love Dr. Currie,'* says tlie Rev. James Gray,
already more than once referred to, but I love tlie memory of Burns more*
cu r^^ UFB OF ROBERT BURNS.
and no consideration shall deter me from a bold declaration of the truth*
The poet of Tke CoUars Saturday Nighi, who felt all the charms of the
hmnble piety and virtue which he sung, is charged, (in Dr. Currie's Nar«
ntive), with vices which would reduce him to a level with the most degrad-
ed of his species. As I knew him during that period of his life emphati-
cally called his evil days, lam enabled to speak from my cvm cbservatUnu
It is not my intention to extenuate his errors, because they were combined
with genius ; on that account, they were only the mate dangerous, be-
cause the more seductive, and deserve the more severe reprehension ; but
I shall likewise claim that nothing may be said in malice even against him.
It came under my own view professionally, that he superin-
tended the education of his children with a degree of care that I have ne-
ver seen surpassed by any parent in any rank of life whatever. In the bo-
som of his family he spent many a delightful hour in directing the studies
of his eldest son, a boy of uncommon talents. I have frequently found him
explaining to this youth, then not more tlian nine years of age, the Eng-
lish poets, from Shakspeare to Gray, or storing his mind with, examples of
heroic virtue, as they live in the pages of our most celebrated English his*
torians. I would ask any person of common candour, if employments like .
these are consistent with habitual drunkenness ?
** It is not denied that he sometimes mingled with society unworthy of him.
He was of a social and convivial nature. He was courted by all classes of
men for the fascinating powers of his conversation, but over his social scene
uncontrolled passion never presided. Over the social bowl, his wit flashed
for hours together, penetrating whatever it struck, like the fire from hea-
ven ; but even in the hour of thoughtless gaity and merriment, 1 never
knew it tainted by indecency. It was playful or caustic by turns, foUow*
ing an allusion through all its windings ; astonishing by its rapidity, or .
amusing by its wild originality, and grotesque, yet natural combinations,
but never, within my observation, disgusting by its grossness. In his
morning hours, I never saw him like one suffering from the effects of last
night*s intemperance. He appeared then clear and unclouded. He was
the eloquent advocate of humanity, justice, and political freedom. From
his paintings, virtue appeared more lovely, and piety assumed a more ce-
lestial mien. While his keen eye was pregnant with fancy and feeling,
and his voice attuned to die very passion which he wished to communicate,
it would hardly have been possible to conceive any being more interesting
and delightful. 1 may likewise add, that to the very end of his life, reading
was his &vourite amusement. I have never known any man so intimately
acquainted with the elegant English authors. He seemed to have the
poets by heart. The prose authors he could quote either in their own
words, or clothe their ideas in language more beautiful than their own.
Nor was there ever any decay in any ot* the powers of his mind. To the
last day of his life, his judgment, his memory, his imagination, were fresh
and vigorous, as when he composed T/te Cottars Saturday Night. The
truth is, that Bums was seldom intoxicated. The drunkard soon becomes
besotted, and is shunned even by the convivial. Had he been so, he could
not long have continued the idol of every party. It will be freely confes-
sed, that the hour of enjoyment was often prolonged beyond the limit
marked by prudence ; but what man will venture to affirm, that in situa-
tions where he was conscious of giving so much pleasiure^ he could at all
times have listened to her voice ?
LIFE OP ROBERT BURnft* ^ Od,
^ The men with whom he generally associated, were not of the West
order. He nmnbered among his intimate friends, manj of the most respec-
table inhabitants of Dumfries and the vicinity. Several of those were at*
tadied to him by ties that the hand (^calumny, busy as it was, could ne-
▼er snap asunder. They admired the poet for his genius, and loved the
nan for the candour, generosity, and kindness of his nature. His early
friends clung to him through good and bad report, with a zeal and fidelity
that prove their disbelief of the malicious stories circulated to his disad-
vant^e. Among them were some of the most distinguished characters in
this country, and not a few females, eminent for delicacy, taste, and genius.
They were proud of his friendship, and cherished him to the last moment
of his existence. He was endeared to them even by his misfortunes, and
they still retain for his memory that affectionate veneration which virtue
alone inspires.'*
Part of Mr. Gray*s letter is omitted, only because it touches on subjects,
as to which Mr. Findlater's statement must be considered as of not merely
sufficient, but the very highest authority.
** My connexion with Robert Bums," says that most respectable man,
** commenced immediately after his admission into the Excise, and con-
tinued to the hour of his death. * In all that time, the superintendence of
his behaviour, as an officer of the revenue, was a branch of my especial pro-
vince, and it may be supposed that I would not be an inattentive observer
of the general conduct of a man and a poet, so celebrated by his country-
men. In the former capacity, he was exemplary in his attention ; and
was even jealous of the least imputation on his vigilance : as a proof of
which, it may not be foreign to the subject to quote a part of a letter from
him to myself, in a case of only seeming inattention. — *■ I know. Sir, and re-
gret deeply, that this business glances with a malign aspect on my charac-
ter as an officer ; but, as I am really innocent in the affair, and as the gentle-
man is known to be an illicit dealer, and particularly as this is the single in-
stance of the least shadow of carelessnes or impropriety in my conduct as
an officer, I shall be peculiarly unfortunate if my character shall fall a sa-
crifice to the dark manoeuvres of a smuggler.' — This of itself affords more
than a presumption of his attention to business, as it cannot be supposed he
would have written in such a style to me, but from the impulse of a consci-
ous rectitude in this department of his duty. Indeed, it was not till near
the latter end of his days that there was any falling off in this respect ; and
this was amply accounted for in the pressure of disease and accumulating
infirmities. 1 will further avow, that 1 never saw him, which was very fre-
quently while he lived at EUiesland, and still more so, almost every day,
after he removed to Dumfries, but in hours of business he was quite him-
self, and capable of discharging the duties of his office ; nor was he ever
known to drink by himself, or seen to indulge in the use of liquor in a fore-
noon. ... 1 have seen Bums in all his various phases, in his convivial
moments, in his sober moods, and in the bosom of his family ; indeed, I
believe I saw. more of him than any other individual had occasion to see,
after he became an Excise officer, and I never beheld any thing like the
gross enormities with which he is now charged : That when set down in
an evening with a few friends whom he liked, he was apt to prolong the
social hour beyond the bounds wh.ich prudence would dictate, is unques*
* 31r. FindUtcr watched by Bums the night before he died.
UfB OF kOBERT BtTRNS.
, #Hnbla t but in hit ftmily, I will renture to say, he wis newei leim other*
wise than attentive and affectionate to a high degree.*'
• These statements are entitled to every consideration : they come flt>ni
men altogether incapable, for any pjirpose, of wilfully stating that which
they know to be untrue.
To whatever Bums*s excesses amounted, they were, it is obvious, and
that frequently, the subject of rebuke and remonstrance even from his own
dearest friends. That such reprimands should have been received at times
with a strange mixture of remorse and indignation, none that have consi-
dered the nervous susceptibility and haughtiness of Bums's character can
hear with surprise. But this was only when the good advice was oral. No
one knew better than he how to answer the written homilies of such per-
sons as were most likely to take the freedom of admonishing him on points
of such delicacy ; nor is there any thing in all his correspondence more
amusing than his reply to a certain solemn lecture of William NicoU. . •
** O thou, wisest among the wise, meridian blaze of prudence, full moon
of discretion, and chief of many counsellors ! how infinitely is thy puddle*
h/saded, rattle-headed, wrong-headed, round-headed slave indebted to thy
supereminent goodness, that from the luminous path of thy own right-lined
rectitude thou lookest benignly down on an erring wretch, of whom the
zig-zag wanderings defy all the powers of calculation, from the simple co-
pulation of units, up to the hidden mysteries of fluxions ! May one feeble
ray of that light of wisdom which darts from thy sensorium, straight as the
arrow of heaven, and bright as the meteor of inspiration, may it be my
portion, so that I may be less unworthy of the face and favour of that fa-
ther of proverbs and master of maxims, that antipod of folly, and magnet
among the sages, the wise and witty Willy NicoU ! Amen ! amen ! Yea,
so be it!
• ** For me ! I am a beast, a reptile, and know nothing !" &c. &c. &c.
To how many that have moralized over the life and death of Burns,
might not such a Tu quogue be addressed !
The strongest argument in favour of those who denounce the statements
of Heron, Currie, and their fellow biographers, concerning the habits of the
poet, during the latter years of his career, as culpably and egregiously ex-
aggerated, still remains to be considered. On the whole, Burns gave sa-
tii&ction by his manner of executing the duties of his station in the reve-
nue service ; he, moreover, as Mr. Gray tells us, (and upon this ground
Mr. Gray could not possibly be mistaken), took a lively interest in the edu-
cation of his children, and spent more hours in their private tuition than
fathers who have more leisure than his excisemanship lefl him, are often
in the custom of so bestowing. — <* He was a kind and attentive father, and
took p^^ delight in spending his evenings in the cultivation of the minds
of his diJBdren. Their education was the grand object of his life, and he
did not, like most parents, think it sufficient to send them to public schoois ;
he was their private instructor, and even at that early age, bestowed great
pains in training their minds to habits of thought and reflection, and in
keeping them pure from every fofm of vice. This he considered ah a sa-
cred duty, and never, to the period of his last ilhiess, relaxed in his dili-
gence. With his eldest son, a boy of not more than nine years of age, he
had read many of the favourite poets, and some of the best historians in
our language ; and what is more remarkable, gave him considerable aid in
ahe study of Latm. This boy attended the Grammar School of Dumfries,
X4F£ OP ROBERT BURKS.
wi scan attracted mv notice by the strengUi of his talents and tlie
of his ambition. Before he had been a year at school^ I thought it ri^it
to advance him a form, and he began to read Caesar, and gave me transla^
lions pf that author of such beauty as I confess surprised me. On inquiryt
I found that his father made him turn over his dictionary, till he was able
to translate to him the passage in such a way that he could gather the au*
tbor*8 meaning, and that it was to him he owed that polished and forcible
English with which I was so greatly struck. I have mentioned this inci«»
dent merely to show what minute attention he |)aid to this important
branch of parental duty." * Lastly, although to all men*s regret he wrote*
afler his removal to Dumfriesshire, only one poetical piece of considerabla
length, ( Tarn o* ShaiUer)^ his epistolary correspondence, and his songs to
Johnson^s Museum, and to the collection of Mr. (leorge Thomson, furnish
undeniable proof that, in whatever Jits of dissipation lie unhappily indulge
ed, he never could possibly have sunk into any thing like that habitual
grossness of manners and sottish degradation of mind, which the writers in
question have not hesitated to hold up to the commiseration o^ mankindi
Of his letters written at Elliesland and Dumfries, nearly three octavo
volumes have been already printed by Currie and Cromek ; and it would
be easy to swell the collection to double this extent. Enough, however,
has been published to enable every reader to judge for himself of the cha-
racter of Burns*s style of epistolary composition. The severest criticism
bestowed on it has been, that it is too elaborate — that, however natural
the feelings, the expression is frequently more studied and artificial than
belongs to that species of composition. Be this remark altogether just in
point of taste, or otherwise, the fact on which it is founded, fumishea
strength to our present position. The poet produced in these years a great
body of elaborate prose- writing.
We have already had occasion to notice some of his contributions to
Johnson's Museum. He continued to the last month of his life to take a
lively interest in that work ; and besides writing for it some dozens of ex-
cellent original songs, his diligence in collecting ancient pieces hitherto
unpublished, and his taste and skill in eking out fragments, were largely,
and most happily exerted, all along, for its benefit. Mr. Cromek saw
among Johnson's papers, no fewer than 184 of the pieces which enter into
the collection, in Burns's handwriting.
His connexion with the more important work of Mr. Thomson commenc-
ed in September 1792 ; and Mr. Gray justly says, that whoever considers
his correspondence with the editor, and the collection itself, must be satis-
fied, that from that time till the commencement of his last illness, not
many days ever passed over his head without the production of some new
stanzas mr its pages. Besides old materials, for the most part embellished
with lines, if not verses of his own, and a whole body of hints, suggestions,
and criticisms, Bums gave Mr. Thomson about sixty original songs. The
songs in this collection are by many eminent critics placed decidedly at
the head of all our poet's performances : it is by none disputed that very
many of them are worthy of his most felicitous inspiration. He bestowed
much more care on them than on his contributions to the Museum ; and
the taste and feeling of the editor secured the work against any intrusions
of that over-warm element which was too apt to mingle in his amatory ef-
• Letter fTom the Rev. Jamet Qnj to Mr. Gilbert Bumi. See his Edition, voL J. Ap^
pcndix, Nob ▼.
16
eA LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS,
iriiionf. Burns knew that he was now engaged on a work destined for the
ejre and ear of refinement ; he laboured throughout, under the salutary feel-
iogf '< virginibiis puerisque canto ;" and the consequences have been hap-
pr indeed for his own fame — for the literary taste, and the national music,
of Scotland ; and, what is of far higher importance, the moral and national
feelings of his countrymen.
In almost all these productions — certainly in all that deserve to be placed
in the first rank of his compositions — Burns made use of his native dialect.
He did so, too, in opposition to the advice of almost all the lettered cor-
respondents he had — more especially of Dr. Moore, who, in his own novels,
never ventured on more than a few casual specimens of Scottish colloquy
—following therein the example of his illustrious predecessor Smollett ;
and not foreseeing that a triumph over English prejudice, which Smollett
might have achieved, had he pleased to make the effort, was destined to be
the prize of Bums*s perseverance in obeying the dictates of native taste
and judgment. Our poet received such suggestions, for the most part, in
silence — not choosing to argue with others on a matter which concerned
only his own feelings ; but in writing to Mr. Tliomson, he had no occasion
either to conceal or disguise his sentiments. ** These English songs,"
says he, " gravel me to death. 1 have not that command of the language
that I have of my native tongue ;"* and again, " so miich for namby*
pamby. I may, after all, try my hand at it in Scots verse. There I am al-
ways most at home." f — He, besides, would have considered it as a sort of
national crime to do any thing that must tend to divorce the music of his
native land from her peculiar idiom. The " genius loci" was never wor-
shipped more fervently than by Burns. *< I am such an enthusiast," says
he, ** that in the course of my several peregrinations through Scotland, I
made a pilgrimage to the individual spot from which every song took its
rise, Lodiaber and the Braes ofBallenden excepted. So far as the locality,
either from the title of the air or the tenor of the song, could be ascer-
tained, I have paid my devotions at the particular shrine of every Scottish
Muse." With such feelings, he was not likely to touch with an irreverent
hand the old fabric of our uational song, or to meditate a lyrical revolution
for the pleasure of strangers. ♦* There is," says he, J " a naivete, a pas-
toral simplicity in a slight intermixture of Scots words and phraseology,
which is more in unison (at least to my taste, and I will add, to every ge-
nuine Caledonian taste), with the simple pathos or rustic sprightliness of
our native music, than any English verses whatever. One hint more let
me give you : — Whatever Mr. Pleyel does, let him not alter one ioia of
the original airs ; 1 mean in the song department ; but let our Scottish na-
tional music preserve its native features. They are, I own, frequently
wild and irreducible to the more modem rules ; but on that very eccentri-
city, perhaps, depends a great part of their effect." §
Of the delight with which Bums laboured for Mr. Thomson's Collection,
his letters contain some lively descriptions. *< You cannot imagine," says
he, 7th April 1793, *< how much this business has added to my enjoy-
ments. What with my early attachment to ballads, your book and ballad-
* Correfpondence with Mr. Thomson, jp. 111. + Ibid. p. 80. % Ibid. p. 88.
§ It may amuse the reader to hear, that m spite of all Bums*a success in the use of his native
didect, even an eminently spirited bookseller to whom the manuscript of Waverley was sub.
mitted, hesitated for some time about pubtiabing it, on account of the Scots diabfae interwo*
VCD ID the notel «
LIFE OP ROBERT BURNS. evil
ndking are now as completely my hobbyhorse as ever fortification
Uncle Toby*8 ; so 111 e'en canter it away till I come to the limit of my
race, (God grant I may take the right side of the winning-post), and theii»
cheerfully looking back on the honest folks with whom I have been hap*
py« I shall say or sing, * Sae merry as we a' hae been,* and raising my last
looks to the whole human race, the last words of the voice of Cotla shaU
be * Good night, and joy be wi' you, a*.* " *
** Until I am complete master of a tune in my own singing, such as it is»
I can never," says Burns, " compose for it. My way is this : I consider
the poetic sentiment correspondent to my idea of the musical expressioot
— then choose my theme, — compose one stanza. When that is composed^
which is generally the most difficult part of the business, I walk out, sit
down now and then, — look out for objects in nature round me that are in
unison or harmony with the cogitations of my fancy, and workings of my
bosom, — humming every now and then the air, with the verses I have fram«
ed. When I feel my muse beginning to jade, I retire to the solitary fire-
side of my study, and there commit my effusions to paper ; swinging at in*
tervals on the hind legs of ,my elbow-chair, by way of calling forth my own
critical strictures, as my pen goes. Seriousl3% this, at home, is almost in^
variably my way. — What cursed egotism I" f
In this correspondence with Mr. Thomson, and in Cromek's later publi-
cation, the reader will find a world of interesting details about the particu-
lar circumstances under which these immortal songs were severally writ-
ten. They are all, or almost all, in fact, part and parcel of the poet's per-
sonal history. No man ever made his muse more completely the compa-
nion of his own individual life. A new flood of light has just been poured
on the same subject, in Mr. Allan Cunningham's '* Collection of Scottish
Songs ;*' unless, therefore, I were to transcribe volumes, and all popular
Tolumes too, it is impossible to go into the details of this part of the poet*s
history. The reader must be contented with a few general memoranda ;
<« Do you think that the sober gin-horse routine of existence could in-
spire a man with life, and love, and joy, — could fire him with enthusiasm,
or melt him with pathos equal to the genius of your book ? No, no. W' hen-
ever I want to be more tlian ordinary in song — to be in some degree equal
to your divine airs — do you imagine I fast and pray for the celestial ema-
nation ? Tout au cofUraire, 1 have a glorious recipe, the very one that for
his own use was invented by the Divinity of healing and poetry, when erst
he piped to the flocks of Admetus, — I put myself on a regimen of admir-
ing a fine woman." %
** I can assure you I was never more in earnest. — Conjugal love is a pas-
sion which I deeply feel, and highly venerate ; but, somehow, it does not
make such a figure in poesy as that other species of the passion,
" Where love is liberty, and nature law."
Musically speaking, the first is an instrument, of which the gamut is scanty
and confined, but the tones inexpressibly sweet ; while the last has powers
equal to all the intellectual modulations of the human soul. Still I am a
very poet in my enthusiasm of the passion. The welfare and happiness of
the beloved object is the first and inviolate sentiment that pervades my
* Correspondence with Mr. Thomson, p. 57* f ^^^^- P* 119* t ^^^ P* 17^
aEffl LIFB OP ROBERT BURKS.
tool ; and — ^whatever pleasures I might wish for, or whatever na>iiiret they
might give me — yet, if they interfere with that first principle} it is having
these pleasures at a dishonest price ; and justice forbids, and generosity
disdains the purchase." *
Of all Burns*s love songs, the best, in his own opinion, was that which
begins,
*^ Vestreen I had a pint o* wine,
A place where boay saw na*.**
Mr. Cunningham says, ** if the poet thought so, I am sorry for it ;*' while
the Reverend Hamilton Paul fully concurs in the author's own estimate df
theperformance.
There is in the same collection a love song, which unites the sufiragesi
and ever will do so, of all men. It has furnished Byron with a mottOi
and Scott has said that that motto is " worth a thousand romances.*'
*^ Hud we ne%*er loved sae kindly.
Had we never loved nae hlindlj,
Never met — or never parted,
We had ne*er been broken-hearted.**
There are traditions which connect Burns with the heroines of these be-
witching songs.
I envy no one the task of inquiring minutely in how far these traditions
rest on the foundation of truth. They refer at worst to occasional errors.
** Many insinuations," suys Mr. Gray, ** have been made against the poet*s
character as a husband, but without the slightest proof; and I might pass
from the charge with tliat neglect which it merits ; but* I am happy to say
that I have in exculpation the direct evidence of Mrs. Bums herself, who,
among many amiable and respectable qualities, ranks a veneration for the
memory of her departed husband, whom she never names but in terms of
the profoundest respect and the deepest regret, to lament his misfortunes,
or to extol his kindnesses to herself, not as the momentary overflowings of
the heart in a season of penitence ibr offences generously forgiven, but an
habitual tenderness, which ended only with his life. I place this evidence,
which I am proud to bring forward on her own authority, against a thou-
sand anonymous calumnies." f
Among the effusions, not amatory, which our poet contributed to Mr.
T]iomson*8 Collection, the famous song of Bannockbum holds the first place.
We have already seen in how lively a manner Burns*s feelings were kindled
when he visited that glorious field. According to tradition, the tune play-
ed when Bruce led his troops to the charge, was " Hey tuttie tattie ;"
and it was humming this old air as he rode by himself through Glenken, a
wild district in Galloway, during a tcrrilic storm of wind and rain, that the
poet composed his immortal lyric in its first and noblest form. This is one
more instance of his delight in the sterner aspects of nature.
*' Come, winter, with thine angry howl.
And raging bend the naked tree — *'
«•
** There is hardly," says he in one of his letters, ** there is scarcely any
earthly object gives me more — I do not know if I should call it pleasure
* Govrespandflnce with Mr. Thomion, n. 191. ^ ' "Lit
t Letter In Oilben Banis*t Edidoo, vol L Apptsdix, p. 437. . ' . : ,,.?^
.-^
tIFfi OF ROfiERT fiOll.VS, cix
—bat something which exalts me, sometliing which enraptures me — than
to walk in the sheltered side of a wood in a cloudy winter day, and hear the
stormy wind howling among the trees, and raving over the plain. It is mj
best season for devotion : my mind is wrapt up in a kind of enthusiasm to
iHwn, who, to use the pompous language of the Hebrew Bard, * walks on
the wings of the wind.' " — To the laist, his best poetry was produced amidst
scenes of solemn desolation.
r
s
CHAPTER IX.
Cavtnnt.'^^Th%poef$ wnortal period approache$ — Hi$ peadiar ttrnperameni-^Sgw^iomi of
prtmature old ago^-^Tkeot moi diminished by narrow eireunudaneeif by ckaprimfrom nepieett
emd by the <Uatk of a Davyhter — The poet mieeeM pnblie patronaye : and even ihefairfrwie
ofkU omn yeniu§~-4he apprf*priation ofwftieh i$ debated for the caeuiets who yielded to him
merdy the aheil — Hie magnanimity when death ie at hand; hie interviewe, eonvert<UionM,
mnd addreesu ae m dying man — Die§, SI«f July 1796 — Pnblie funend^ at whi^ many ai"
tendf and amonyet the rett thefutttre Premier of England, who had tteadily refnaed to of-
knowledge the poet, living—- Hie family munificently provided^ by the pmblie—Analyeis of
eharaeter — Hie integrity, religious state, and genius'^ Strictures upon him and his writinga
by Scott, Campbell, Byron, and others.
^ I dread thee, Fate, relentless and severe,
M'ith all a poet's, husband's, father's fear.**
Wb are drawing near the close of this great poet*8 mortal career ; and I
would fain hope the details of the last chapter may have prepared the hu-
mane reader to contemplate it with sentiments of sorrow, pure and unde-
based with any considerable intermixture of less genial feelings.
For some years before Bums was lost to his country, it is sufficiently
plain that he had been, on political grounds, on object of suspicion and dis-
trust to a large portion of the population that had most opportimity of ob-
serving him. Hie mean subalterns of party had, it is very easy to suppose^
delighted in decrying him on pretexts, good, bad, and indifferent, equally —
to their superiors ; and hence, who will not willingly believe it? the tem-
porary and local prevalence of those extravagantly injurious reports, the
essence of which Dr. Currie, no doubt, thought it his duty, as a biographer,
to extract and circulate.
A gentleman of that county, whose name I have already more than once
hid occasion to refer to, has often told me, that he was seldom more grie-
ved, than when riding into Dumfries one fine summer *s evening, about this
time, to attend a county ball, he saw Burns walking alone, on the shady
aide of the principal street of the town, while the opposite side was gay
with successive groups of gentlemen and ladies, all drawn together for the
festivities of the night, not one of whom. appeared willing to recognize him*
'l*he horseman dismounted and joined Bums, who, on his proposing to him
to cross the street, said, '< Nay, nay, my young friend, — that's all over
now ;" and quoted, after a pause, some verses of Lady Grizzel Baillie'a
pathetic ballad, —
** His bonnet stood ance fit' fidr oo his brow,
Hbauld ane look*d better than monv ane's ntw;
But now he lets't wear ony way it will hing.
And casts himscU dowie upon the com-bing.
LtfE OP ROBSRT fiURt^S.' «ki
** O were we young, as we ance hte been,
We tud hae been gidloping doun on ym greeny
And linking it ower the li^white lea, —
And werena my heart Ught I wad die,"*
It was little in Burns^s character to let his feelings on certain subjects, es«
cape in this fashion. He, immediately afler citing these verses, assumed
the sprighUiness of his most pleasing manner ; and takjjpg his young friend
home with him, entertained him very agreeably until the hour of the ball
arrived, with a bowl of his usual potation, and Bonnie Jean*s singing of
some verses which he had recently composed.
The untimely death of one who, had he lived to any thing like the usual
term of human existence, might have done so much to increase his fame
as a poet, and to purify and dignify his character as a man, was, it is too
probable, hastened by his own intemperances and imprudences: but it
seems to be extremely improbable, that, even if his manhood had been a
course of saintlike virtue in all respects, the irritable and nervous bodily
constitution which he inherited from his father, shaken as it was by the
toils and miseries of his ill-starred youth, could have sustained, to any
thing like the psalmist's <* allotted span,'* the exhausting excitements of an
intensely poetical temperament. Since the first pages of this narrative were
sent to the press, I have heard from an old acquaintance of the bard, who
oflen shared his bed with him at Mossgiel, that even at that early period,
when intemperance assuredly had had nothing to do with the matter, those
ominous symptoms of radical disorder in the digestive system, the *' palpi-
tation and suffocation*' of which Gilbert speaks, were so regularly bis noc-
turnal visitants, that it was his custom to have a great tub of cold water
by his bedside, into which he usually plunged more than once in the coarse
of the night, thereby procuring instant, though but shortlived relief. On
a frame thus originally constructed, and thus early tried with most se-
vere afflictions, external and internal, what must not have been, under any
subsequent course of circumstances, the effect of that exquisite sensibi-
hty of mind, but for which the world would never have heard any thing
either of the sins, or the sorrows, or the poetry of Burns !
** The fates and characters of the rhyming tribe," * (thus writes the
poet himself), '* oflen employ my thoughts when I am disposed to be me-
lancholy. Tliere is not, among all the martyrologies that ever were pen*
ned, so rueful a narrative as the lives of the poets. — In the comparative
Tiew of wretches, the criterion is not wliat they are doomed to suffer, but
how they are formed to bear. Take a being of our kind, give him a stronger
imagination and a more delicate sensibility, which between tliem will ever
engender a more ungovernable set of passions, than are the usual lot of
man ; implant in him an irresistible impulse to some idle vagary, such as,
arranging wild flowers in fantastical nosegays, tracing the grasshopper to
his haunt by his chirping song, watching the frisks of the little minnows
in the sunny pool, or hunting after the intrigues of butterflies — in short,
send him adrifl after some pursuit which shall eternally mislead him from
the paths of lucre, and yet curse him with .a keener relish than any man
living for the pleasures that lucre can purchase ; lastly, fill up the measure
of his woes by bestowing on him a spuming sense of his own dignity, and
you have created a wight nearly as miserable as a poet"
* Letter to Miss Chalmen in 1799.
cxii LItE OF ROBERT BURKS*
In these few short sentences, as it appears to me, Buims haS traced his own
character far better than any one else has done it since — But with this lot
what pleasures were not mingled ? — ** To you, Madam," he proceeds, " I
need not recount the fairy pleasures the muse bestows to counterbalance
this catalogue of evils. Bewitching poetry is like bewitching woman ; she
hai in all ages been accused of misleading mankind from the counsels of
wisdom and the paths of prudence, involving them in difficulties, baiting
them with poverty, branding them with infamy, and plunging them in the
whirling vortex of ruin ; yet, where is the man but must own that all our
happiness on earth is not worthy the name — that even the holy hermit's
solitary prospect of pardisiacal bliss is but the glitter of a northern sun» ris-
tog over a frozen region, compared with the many pleasures, the nameless
raptures, that we owe to the lovely Queen of the heart of man J"
It is common to say of those who over-indulge themselves in material
stimulants, that they live fast ; what wonder that the career of the poet's
thick-coming fancies should, in the immense majority of cases, be rapid
too?
That Burns lived fast, in both senses of the phrase, we have abundant
evidence from himself; and that the more earthly motion was somewhat ac-
celerated as it approached the close, we may believe, without finding it at all
necessary to mingle anger with our sorrow. << Even in his earliest poems/'
•s Mr. Wordswortli says, in a beautiful passage of his letter to Mr. Gray,
** through the veil of assumed habits and pretended qualities, enough of
the real man appears to show, that he was conscious of sufficient cause to
dread his own passions, and to bewail his errors ! We have rejected as false
sometimes in the latter, and of necessity as false in the spirit, many of the
testimonies that others have borne against him : — but, by his own hand —
an words the import of which cannot be mistaken — it has been recorded
that the order of his life but faintly corresponded with the clearness of his
views. It is probable that he would have proved a still f^rcater poet if, by
Strength of reason, he could have controlled the propensities which his sen-
sibility engendered ; but he would have been a poet of a d liferent class :
and certain it is, had that desirable restraint been eurly established, many
peculiar beauties which enrich his verses could never have existed, and
many accessary influences, which contribute greatly to their effect, would
have been wanting. For instance, the momentous truth of the passage-—
'^ One point must still be fi^eatly dark.
The moring why they do it :
And just as lamely can ye mark,
How far perhaps they rue iu
Then gently scan your brother man,
Still genUier sister woman —
Though they may gang a kennin* wrang s
To step aside is human,*'
Cduld not possibly have been conveyed with such pathetic force by any
poet that ever lived, speaking in his own voice ; unless it were felt that,
like Bums, he was a man who preached from the text of his own errors ;
tnd whose wisdom, beautiful as a flower that might have risen from seed
•own from above, was in fact a scion from the root of personal suffering."
In how far the <* thoughtless follies" of the poet did actually hasten his
end, it is needless to conjecture. They had their share, unquestionably,
filong with other influences which it would be inhuman to dmucterise as
LIFE OF ROfiERT BURNS. cxiii
mere fo]lie8--^uch, for example, as that general depression of spirits which
haunted him from his youth, and, in all likelihood, sat more heavily on
such a being as Burns than a man of plain common sense might guess,— or
even a casual expression of discouraging tendency from uie persons on
whose good-will all hopes of substantial advancement in the scale of world*
ly promotion depended, — or that partial exclusion from the species ci so-
ciety our poet had been accustomed to adorn and delight, which, from
however inadequate causes, certainly did occur during some of the latter
years of his life. — All such sorrows as these must have acted with twofold
tyranny upon Burns ; harassing, in the first place, one of the most sensitive
minds that ever filled a human bosom, and, alas ! by consequence, tempting
to additional excesses. How he struggled against the tide of his miseiy, let
the following letter speak. — It was written February 25, 1794, and addres-
sed to Mr. Alexander Cunningham, an eccentric being, but generous and
faithful in his friendship to Burns, and, when Burns was no more, to his
family. — " Canst thou minister," says the poet, " to a mind diseased ?
Canst thou speak peace and rest to a soul tost on a sea of troubles, without
one friendly star to guide her course, and dreading that the next surge may
overwhelm her ? Canst thou give to a frame, tremblingly alive as the tor-
tures of suspense, the stability and hardihood of the rock that braves the
blast ? If thou canst not do the least of these, why would'st thou disturb
me in my miseries, with thy inquiries afler me ? For these two months I
have not been able to lift a pen. My constitution and frame were ab ori*
giney blasted with a deep incurable taint of hypochondria, whica poisons^ my
existence. Of late a number of domestic vexations, and some pecuniary
share in the ruin of these •♦♦•• times — losses which, though trifiing, were
yet what I could ill bear, have so irritated me, that my feelings at times
could only be envied by a reprobate spirit listening to the sentence that
dooms it to perdition. Are you deep in the language of consolation ? I
have exhausted in reflection every topic of comfort. A heart at ease would
have been charmed with my sentiments and reasonings ; but as to myself, I
was like Judas Iscariot preaching the gospel ; he might melt and mould
the hearts of those around him^ but his own kept its native incorrigibility.
Still there are two great pillars that bear us up, amid the wreck of misfor-
tune and misery. The one is composed of the different modifications of a
certain noble, stubborn something in man, known by tlie names of courage»
fortitude, magnanimity. The other is made up o£ those feelings and sen-
timents, which, however the sceptic may deny, or the enthusiast disfigure
them, are yet, I am convinced, original and component parts of the human
•oul ; those senses of the mindy if I may be allowed the expression, which
connect us with, and link us to those awful obscure realities — an all-power-
ful and equally beneficent God — and a world to come, beyond death and
the grave. The first gives the nerve of combat, while a ray of hope beams
on the field ; — the last pours the balm of comfort into the wounds which
time can never cure.
*< I do not remember, my dear Cunningham, that you and I ever talked
on the subject of religion at all. I know some who laugh at it, as the trick
of the crafty few, to lead the undisceming many ; or at most as an uncer*
tain obscurity, which mankind can never know any thing of, and with which
they are fools if they give themselves much to do. Nor would I quarrel
with a man for his irreligion, any more than I would for his want of a mu-
ileal oar. I would regret that be was shut out from what, to me and t9
17
adT Ldte OP tl6fifiRT BUllKS.
•dien, were such tuperlative sourcee of enjoyment. It is in tl^ point otneWi
mnd for this reason, that I will deeply imbue the mind of every child of
mine with religion. If my son should happen to be a man of feding, sen-
timent, and taste, I shall tnus add largel;)r to his enjoyments. Let me flatter
myself that this sweet little fellow irho is just now running about my desk,
wUl be a man of a melting, ardent, glowing heart ; and an imagination, de*
lighted with the (Nunter, and rapt with the poet. Let me figure him,
wandering out in a sweet evening, to inhale the balmy gales, and enjoy the
growing luxuriance of the spring ; himself the while in the blooming youth
of life. He looks abroad on all nature, and through nature up to nature's
God. His soul, by swifl, delighted degrees, is rapt above this sublunary
sphere, until he can be silent no longer, and bursts out into the glorious
enthusiasm of Thomson,
^ Thflse, at thej change. Almighty Father, these
Ate hut the Taried OocL — The rolling year
la ftiU of Thee ;*
and so on, in all the spirit and ardour of that charming hjrmn^^-These are
no ideal pleasures ; they are real delights ; and I ask what of the delights
among the sons of men are superior, not to say, equal to them? And they
have this precious, vast addition, that conscious virtue stamps them for her
own ; and lays hold on them to bring herself into the presence of a witness-
ing, judging, and approving God."
They who have been told that Burns was ever a degraded being — ^who
have permitted themselves to believe that his only consolations were those
of " the opiate guilt applies to grief,*' will do well to pause over this noble
letter and judge for themselves. The enemy under which he was destined
to sink, had already beaten in the outworks of his constitution when these
lines were penned. The reader has already had occasion to observe, that
Burns had in those closing years of his life to struggle almost continually
with pecuniary difficulties, than which nothing could have been more like-
ly to pour bitterness intolerable into the cup of his existence. His lively
unagination exaggerated to itself every real evil ; and this among, and per-
haps above, all the rest ; at least, in many of his letters we find hun alluding
to the probability of his being arrested for debts, which we now know to
have been of very trivial amount at the worst, which we also know he him-
self lived to discharge* to the utmost farthing, and in regard to which it ia
impossible to doubt that his personal friends in Dumfries would have at all
times been ready to prevent the law taking its ultimate course. This last
consideration, however, was one which would have given slender relief to
Bums. How he shrunk with horror and loathing from the sense of pecu-
nianr obligation, no matter to whom, we have had abundant indications al-
ready.
The following extract from one of his letters to Mr. Macmurdo, dated
December 1793, will speak for itself: — " Sir, it is said that we take the
greatest liberties with our greatest friends, and I pay myself a very high
compliment in the manner in which 1 am going to apply the remark. I
have owed you money longer than ever I owed it to any man«^Here is
Ker*s account, and here are six guineas ; and now, I don't owe a shilling
to man, or woman either. But for these danmed dirty, dog's-eared little
pages, (bank-notes), I had done myself the honour to have waited on
you long ago. Independent of the obligations your hoi^tality.baa Uu|
LIVE OF ROBERT BURNS. cxr
flie Undei^» the Consciousness of your superiority in the rank of man and
gentleman of itself was fully as much as 1 could ever make head against ;
but to owe you money too, was more than I could face.
The question naturally arises : Bums was all this while pouring out his
beautiful songs for the Museum of Johnson and the greater work of Thom-
son ; how did he happen to derive no pecuniary advantages from this con-
tinual exertion of his genius in a form of composition so eminently calcu-
lated for popularity ? Nor, indeed, is it an easy matter to answer -this very
obvious question. The poet himself, in a letter to Mr. Carfrae, dated
1789, speaks thus : — ** The profits of the labours of a man of genius are, I
bope, as honourable as any profits whatever ; and Mr. Mylne*s relations
•re most justly entitled to that honest harvest which fate has denied him-
self to reap." And yet, so far from looking to Mr. Johnson for any pecu-
niary remuneration for the very laborious part he took in his work, it ap-
pears from a passage in Cromek's Reliques, that the poet asked a single
copy of the Museum to give to a fair friend, by'way of a great favour to
bimself — and that that copy and his own were really all he ever received
at the hands of the publisher. Of the secret history of Johnson and his
book I know nothing ; but the Correspondence of Burns with Mr. Thomson
contains curious enough details concerning his connexion with that gentle-
man's more important undertaking. At the outset, September 1792, we
find Mr. Thomson saying, ** We will esteem your poetical assistance a
particular favour, besides paying any reasonable price you shall please to
demand for it. Profit is quite a secondary consideration with us, and we
are resolved to save neither pains nor expense on the publication." To
which Bums replies immediately, ** As to any remuneration, you may think
my songs either above or below price ; for they shall absolutely be the one
or the other. In the honest enthusiasm with which I embark in your un-
dertaking, to talk of money, wages, fee, hire, &c. would be downright pros-
titution of soul. A proof of each of the songs that I compose or amend I
shall receive as a favour. In the rustic phrase of the season, Gutie speed
ike taarkJ* The next time we meet with any hint as to money matters in
the Correspondence is in a letter of Mr. Thomson, 1st July 1793, where
be says, ** I cannot express how much I am obliged to you for the exqui-
site new songs you are sending me ; but thanks, my friend, are a poor re-
turn for what you have done : as I shall be benefited by the publication,
Tou must suffer me to enclose a small mark of my gratitude, and to repeat
It afterwards when I find it convenient. Do not return it, for, by Heaven,
if you do, our correspondence is at an end." To which letter (it inclosed
Mb) Bums thus replies : — ** I assure you, my dear Sir, that you truly hurt
me with your pecuniary parcel. It degrades me in ray own eyes. How-
ever, to return it would savour of affectation ; but as to any more traffic of
that debtor and creditor kind, I swear by that honour which crowns the
upright statue of Robert Burns's integrity — on the least motion of it, I
will indignantly spurn the by-past transaction, and from that moment com-
mence entire stranger to you. Burns's character for generosity of senti-
ment and independence of mind will, I trust, long outlive any of his wants
which the cold unfeeling ore can supply : at least, I will take care that
such a character he shall deserve.*' — In November 1 794, we find Mr. Thom-
son writing to Burns, '* Do not, I beseech you, return any books." — In May
1795, *' You really make me blush when you tell me you have not merited
the drawing from pie i" (this was a drawing of The Cottar's Saturday Nighi^
exTi LIFE OF ROBERt BURN&
by Allan) ; << I do not think I can ever repay you, or sufficiently esteem
and respect you, for the Hberal and kind manner in which you have enter-
ed into the spirit of my undertaking, which could not have been perfected
without you. So I beg you would not make a fool of me again by speak-
ing of obligation." In February 1796, we have Bums acknowledging a
«* handsome elegant present to ^Irs. B ," which was u worsted shawl.
Lastly, on the 12th July of the same year, (that is, little more than a week
before Burns died), he writes to Mr. Thomson in these terms : — ^" After
all my boasted independence, cursed necessity compels me to implore you
for five pounds. A cruel of a haberdasher, to whom I owe an ac-
count, taking it into his head that I am dying, has commenced a process,
and will infallibly put me into jail. Do^ for God*s sake, send me that
sum, and that by return oi' post. Forgive me this earnestness ; but the hor-
rors of a jail have put me half distsacted. — I do not ask this gratuitously ;
for, upon returning health, I hereby promise and engage to furnish you
with five pounds worth of the neatest song genius you have seen." To
which Mr. Thomson replies — " Ever since I received your melancholy let-
ter by Mrs. Hyslop, I have been ruminating in what manner I could en*
deavour to alleviate your sufferings. Again and again I thought of a pe-
cuniary offer ; but the recollection of one of your letters on this subject,
and the fear of offending your independent spirit, checked my resolution.
I thank you heartily, therefore, for the frankness of your letter of the 1 2th,
and with great pleasure enclose a draft for the very sum I proposed send-
ing. Would I were Chancellor of the Exchequer but one day for your
sake ! Pray, my good Sir, is it not possible for you to muster a volume
of poetry ? Do not shun this method of obtaining the value of
your labour ; remember Pope published the Iliadhy subscription. Think
of this, my dear Burns, and do not think me intrusive with my advice.'*
Such are the details of this matter, as recorded in the correspondence
of the two individuals concerned. Some time after Burns s death, Mr.
Thomson was attacked on account of his behaviour to the poet, in a novel
called Nubilia. In Professor Walker's Memoirs of Burns, which appeared
in 1816, Mr. Thomson took the opportunity of defending himself thus : —
♦* I have been attacked with much bitterness, and accused of not endea-
vouring to remunerate Burns for the songs which he wrote for my collec-
tion; although there is, the clearest evidence of the contrary, both in the
printed correspondence between the poet and me, and in the public testi-
mony of Dr. Currie. My assailant, too, without knowing any thing of the
matter, states, that I had enriched myself by the labours of Burns ; and,
of course, that ray want of generosity was inexcusable. Now, the fact is,
that notwithstanding the united labours of all the men of genius who have
enriched my collection, I am not even yet compensated for the precious
time consumed by me in poring over nnisty volumes, and in corresponding
with every amateur and poet by whose means I expected to make any va-
luable additions to our national music and song ; — for the exertion and mo-
ney it cost me to obtain accompaniments from the greatest masters of har-
mony in Vienna; — and for the sums paid to engravers, printers, and others.
On this subject, the testimony of Mr. Preston in London, a man of un-
questionable and well-known character, who has printed the music for
every copy of my work, may be more satisfactory than any thing I can
say: In August 1809, he wrote me as follows : < I am concerned at the
V^y umrarrantable attack which has been wade upon jrou \xj the autbof
LIFE OF ROBERT BURKS. cxvii
of NutHia ; nothing could be more unjust than to say you had enriched
yourself by Bums's labours ; for the whole concern, though it includes the
labours of Haydn, has scarcely afforded a compensation for the various ex-
penses, and for the time employed on the work. When a work obtains
any celebrity, publishers are generally supposed to derive a profit ten times
beyond the reality ; the sale is greatly magnified, and the expenses are not
in the least taken into consideration. It is truly vexatious to be so grossly
and scandalously abused for conduct, the very reverse of which has been
numifest through the whole transaction.' — Were I the sordid man that the
anonymous author calls me, I had a most inviting opportunity to profit
much more than I did by the lyrics of our great bard. He had written
above fifty songs expressly for my work ; they were in my possession un-
published at his death ; I had the right and the power of retaining them
till I should be ready to publish them ; but when I was informed that an
edition of the poet's works was projected for the benefit of his family, I put
them in immediate possession of the whole of his songs, as well as letters,
and thus enabled Dr. Currie to complete the four volumes which were sold
for the family's behoof to Messrs. Cadell and Davies. And I have the sa-
tis&ction of knowing, that the most zealous friends of the family, Mr. Cun-
ningbame, Mr. Syme, and Dr. Currie, and the poet's own brother, consi-
dered my sacrifice of the prior right of publishing tlie songs, as no ungrate-
ful return for the disinterested and liberal conduct of the poet. Accord-
ingly, Mr. Gilbert Burns, in a letter to me, which alone might suffice for
an answer to all the novelist's abuse, thus expresses himself : — ' If ever
I come to Edinburgh, I will certainly call on a person whose handsome con-
duct to my brother's family has secured my esteem, and confirmed me in
the opinion, that musical taste and talents have a close connexion with the
harmony of tlie moral feelings.* Nothing is farther from my thoughts
than to claim any merit for what I did. 1 never would have said a word
an the subject, but for the harsh and groundless accusation which has been
brought forward, either by ignorance or animosity, and which I have long
suffered to remain unnoticed, from my great dislike to any public ap-
pearance."
This statement of Mr. Thomson supersedes the necessity of any addi-
tional remarks, (writes Professor Walker). When the public is satisfied;
when the relations of Burns arc grateful ; and, above all, when the delicate
mind of Mr. Thomson is at peace with itself in contemplating his conduct,
there can be no necessity for a nameless novelist to contradict them.
So far, Mr. Walker : — Why Burns, who was of opinion, when he wrote
his letter to Mr. Carfrae, that '< no profits are more honourable than those
c^the labours of a man of genius," and whose own notions of independence
had sustained no shock in the receipt of hundreds of pounds from Creech,
should have spurned the suggestion of pecuniary recompense from Thom-
son, it is no easy matter to explain : nor do I profess to understand why Mr.
Thomson took so little pains - to argue the matter in limine with the poet,
and convince him, that the time which he himself considered as fairly en-
titled to be paid for by a common bookseller, ought of right to be valued
and acknowledged on similar terms by the editor and proprietor of a book
containing both songs and music. They order these things differently
now : a living lyric poet whom none will place in a higher rank than Bums,
has long, it is understood, been in the habit of receiving about as much
money annually for an annual handful of songs, as was ever oaid to our
bard for the whole body of his writings.
cxviii LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS.
Of the increasing irritability of our poet's temperament, amidst those trou *
bles, external and internal, that preceded his last illness, his letters furnish
proofs, to dwell on which could only inflict unnecessary pain. Let one ex*
ample suffice. — ** Sunday closes a period of our curst revenue business,
and may probably keep me employed with my pen until noon. Fine em-
ployment for a poet's pen ! Here I sit, altogether Novemberish, a d
melange of fretfulness and melancholy ; not enough of the one to rouse roe
to passion, nor of the other to repose me in torpor ; my soul flouncing and
fluttering round her tenement, like a wild finch, caught amid the horrors
of winter, and newly thrust into a cage. Well, I am persuaded that it
was of me the Hebrew sage prophesied, when he foretold—* And behold,
on whatsoever this man doth set his heart, it shall not prosper !* Pray that
wisdom and bliss be more frequent visitors of U. B."
Towards the close of 1795 Burns was, as has been previously mention-
ed, employed as an acting Supervisor of Excise. This was apparently a
step to a permanent situation of that higher and more lucrative class ; and
from thence, there was every reason to believe, the kind patronage of Mr.
Graham might elevate him yet farther. These hopes, however, were mingl-
ed and darkened with sorrow. For four months of that year his youngest
child lingered through an illness of which every week promised to be the
last ; and she was finally cut off when the poet, who had watched her with
anxious tenderness, was from home on professional business. This was a
severe blow, and his own nerves, though as yet he had not taken any seri-
ous alarm about his ailments, were ill fitted to withstand it.
" There had need," he writes to Mrs. Dunlop, 15th December, " there
had much need be many pleasures annexed to the states of husband and
father, for God knows, they have many peculiar cares. I cannot describe
to you the anxious, sleepless hours these ties frequently give me. I see a
train of helpless little folks ; me and my exertions all their stay ; and on
what a brittle thread does the life of man hang ! If I am nipt off at the
command of fate, even in all the vigour of manhood as I am, such things
happen every day — gracious God ! what would become of my little flock !
'Tis here that I envy your people of fortune. — A father on his death-bed,
taking an everlasting leave of his children, has indeed woe enough ; but
the man of competent fortune leaves his sons and daughters independency
and friends ; while I — but I shall run distracted if I think any longer on
the subject."
To the same lady, on the 29th of the month, he, after mentioning his
supervisorship, and saying that at last his political sins seemed to be for-
given him — goes on in this ominous tone — *' What a transient business is
life ! Very lately I was a boy ; but t'other day a young man ; and I already
begin to feel the rigid fibre and stiffening joints of old age coming fast over
my frame." We may trace the melancholy sequel in the few following
extracts.
*' S\8t January 1796. — I have lately drunk deep of the cup of afflic-
tion. The autumn robbed me of my only daughter and darling child, and
that at a distance too, and so rapidly, as to put it out of my power to pay
the last duties to her. I had scarcely begun to recover from that shock,
when I became myself the victim of a most severe rheumatic fever, and
long the die spun doubtful ; until, after many weeks of a sick-bed, it seems
to have turned up life, and I am beginning to crawl across my room, and
once indeed have been before my own door in the street.
LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. ' czix
** When pleaiare faidiiatei the mental tight, '
Affliction purifies the risual iet.
Region haiis the drear, the untned night»
That shttti, for erer diuta ! life*! doubtful daj.**
But a few dBjs after this, Bums was so exceedingly imprudent as to join
a festive circle at a tavern dinner, where he remained till about three in the
morning. The weather was severe, and he, being much intoxicated, took
no precaution in thus exposing his debilitated frame to its influence. It
has been said, that he fell asleep upon the snow on his way home. It
11 certain, that next morning he was sensible of an icy numbness through
all his joints^that his rheumatism returned with tenfold force upon him —
and that from that unhappy hour, his mind brooded ominously on the fatal
issue. The course of medicine to which he submitted was violent ; con-
finement, accustomed as he had been to much bodily exercise, preyed
miserably on all his powers ; he drooped visibly, and all the hopes of his
friends, that health wbuld return with summer, were destined to disap*
pointment.
** AthJune 1796.* — I am in such miserable health as to be utterly inca-
pable of showing my loyalty in any way. Rackt as I am with rheuma-
tisms, I meet every face with a greeting like that of Balak and Balaam,-—
< Come curse me Jacob ; and come defy me Israel.' *'
*< 1th July, — I fear the voice of the Bard will soon be heard among you
DO more. — For these eight or ten months I have been ailing, sometimes
bed-fast and sometimes not ; but these last three months I have been tor-
tured with an excruciating rheumatism which has reduced me to nearly the
last stage. You actually would not know me if you saw me — pale, emaci-
ated, and so feeble, as occasionally to need help from my chair. — My spirits
fled ! fled ! But I can no more on the subject."
This last letter was addressed to Mr. Cunningham of Edinburgh, from
the small village of Brow on the Solway Frith, about ten miles from Dum-
fries, to which the poet removed about the end of June ; " the medical
folks," as he says, " having told him that his last and only chance was
bathing, country quarters, and riding." In separating himself' by their ad-
vice from his family for these purposes, he carried with him a heavy bur-
den of care. ** The duce of the matter," he writes, '< is this ; when an ex-
ciseman is off duty, his salary is reduced. What way, in the name of thrift,
shall I maintain myself and keep a horse in country quarters on £S5 ?*!
He implored his friends in Edinburgh, to make interest with the Board to
grant him his full salary ; if they do not, I must lay my account with an
exit truly en poete — if I die not of disease, I must perish with hunger."
Mrs. Riddell of Glenriddel, a beautiful and very accomplished woman,
to whom many of Burns's most interesting letters, in the latter years of his
life, were addressed, happened to be in the neighbourhood of Brow when
Bums reached his bathing quarters, and exerted herself to make him as
comfortable as circumstances permitted. Having sent her carriage for his
conveyance, the poet visited her on the 5th July ; and she has, in a letter
published by Dr. Currie, thus described his appearance and conversation
on that occasion : —
'< I was struck with his appearance on entering the room. The stamp
of death was impressed on his features. He seemed already touching the
brink of eternity. His first salutation was, ' Well, Madam, have you any
;« The birth^y of Gsoige III.
LOS OP BOBERT BURNS;
commands for the other world ?' I replied that it seemed a doubtful case
which of us should be there soonest, and that I hoped he would yet live to
write my epitaph. (I was then in a poor state of health.) He looked in my
face with an air of great kindness, and expressed his concern at seeing me
look so ill, with his accustomed sensibility. At table he ate little or no-
thing, and he complained of having entirely lost the tone of his stomach.
We had a long and serious conversation about his present situation, and
the approaching termination of all his earthly prospects. He spoke of his
death without any of tlie ostentation of philosophy, but with firmness as
well as feeling — as an event likely to happen very soon, and which gave
him concern chiefly from leaving his four children so young and unprotect-
edf and his wife in so interesting a situation — in the hourly expectation of
lying-in of a fifth. He mentioned, with seeming pride and satisfaction,
^le promising genius of his eldest son, and the flattering marks of appro-
bation he had received from his teachers, and dwelt particularly on his
hopes of that boy's future conduct and merit. His anxiety for his family
seemed to hang heavy upon him, and the more perhaps from the reflection
that he had not done them all the justice he was so well qualified to do.
Passing from this subject, he showed great concern about the care of his lite-
rary fame, and particularly the publication of his posthumous works. He
said he was well aware that his death would occasion some noise, and that
every scrap of his writings would be revived against him to the injury of his
future reputation : that letters and verses written with unguarded and im-
proper freedom, and which he earnestly wished to have buried in oblivion,
would be handed about by idle vanity or malevolence, when no dread of his
resentment would restrain them, or prevent the censures of shrill-tongued
malice, or the insidious sarcasms of envy, from pouring forth all their ve-
nom to blast his fame. He lamented that he had written many epigrams
on persons against whom he entertained no enmity, and whose characters
he should be sorry to wound ; and many indifferent poetical pieces, which
he feared would now, with all their imperfections on their head, be thrust
upon the world. On this account he deeply regretted having deferred to
put his papers into a state of arrangement, as he was now quite incapable of
the exertion. — The conversation was kept up with great evenness and ani-
mation on his side. I have seldom seen his mind greater or more collected.
There was frequently a considerable degree of vivacity in his sallies, and
t^iey would probably have had a greater share, had not the concern and
dejection I could not disguise, damped the spirit of pleasantry he seemed
not unwilling to indulge. — We parted about sun-set on the evening of that
day (the 5th of July 1796) ; the next day I saw him again, and we parted
to meet no more !'*
I do not know the exact date of the following letter to Mrs Bums : —
" Brow, Thursday. — My dearest Love, I delayed writing until I could
tell you what effect sea-bathing was likely to produce. It would be injus-
tice to deny that it has eased my pains, and I think has strengthened me •
but my appetite is still extremely bad. No flesh nor fish can I swallow .
porridge and milk are the only things I can taste. I am very happy to
hear, by Miss Jess Lewars, that you are all well. My very best and kind-
est compliments to her and to all the children. Twill see you on Sunday.
Your affectionate husband, R. B."
There is a very affecting letter to Gilbert, dated the 7th, in which the
poet says, " I am dangerously ill, and not likely to get better God keep
LIFE OF ROBERT BURMS^ toad
my wife and children." On the 12th« he wrote the letter to Mr. Georgt
Thomson* above quoted, requesting £5 ; and, on the same day, he penned
also the following — the last letter that he ever wrote*-to his friend Mrs.
Dunlop.
<< Madam, I have written you so oflen, without receiving any answer,
that I would not trouble you again, but for the circumstances in which I
am. An illness which has long hung about me, in all probability will speed-
ily send me beyond that bourne wlience no traveller returns* Your friend-
ship, with which for many years you honoured me, was a friendship
dearest to my soul. Your conversation, and especially your correspondence,
were at once highly entertaining and instructive. With what pleasure did
I use to break up the seal ! The remembrance yet adds one pulse more to
my poor palpitating heart. Farewell ! ! !'*
1 give the following anecdote in the words of Mr. M*Diarmid :•—
^ Rousseau, we all know, when dying, wished to be carried into the open
air, that he might obtain a parting look of the glorious orb of day. A night
or two before Bums left Brow, he drank tea with Mrs. Craig, widow of th^
minister of Ruthwell. His altered appearance excited much silent sympa-
thy ; and the evening being beautiful, and the sun shining brightly through-
the casement. Miss Craig (now Mrs. Henry Duncan), was afraid the light
might be too much for him, and rose with the view of letting down the win-
dow blinds. Burns immediately guessed what she meant ; and, regarding
the young lady with a look of great benignity, said, * Thank you, my dear,
for your kind attention ; but, oh, let him shine ; he will not shine long for
me.
On the 18th, despairing of any benefit from the sea, our poet came back
to Dumfries. Mr. Allan Cunningham, who saw him arrive '* visibly chang-
ed in his looks, being with difficulty able to stand upright, and reach his
own door," has given a striking picture, in one of his essays, of the state of
popular feeling in the town during the short space which intervened between
his return and his death. — *< Dumfries was like a besieged place. It was
known he was dying, and the anxiety, not of the rich and learned only, but
of the mechanics and peasants, exceeded all belief. Wherever two of
three people stood together, their talk was of Burns, and of him alone.
They spoke of his history — of his person — of his works — of his family — of
his fai^e — and of his untimely and approaching fate, with a m armth and an
enthusiasm which will ever endear Dumfries to my remembrance. All that
he said or was saying — the opinions of the physicians, (and Maxwell was a
kind and a skilful one), were eagerly caughc up and reported from street to
street, and from house to house."
<* His good humour," Cunningham adds, << was unruffled, and his wit ne-
ver forsook him. He looked to one of his fellow volunteers with a smile^
as he stood by the bed-side with his eyes wet, and said, * John, don't let
the awkward squad fire over me.' He repressed with a smile the hopes of
his friends, and told them he had lived long enough. As his life drew near
a close, the eager yet decorous solicitude of his fellow townsmen increased*
It is the practice of the young men of Dumfries to meet in the streets
during the hours of remission from labour, and by these means I had an
opportunity of witnessing the general solicitude of all ranks and of all ages.
His differences with them on some important points were forgotten and for*
* I take the opportunitv of once more acknowledging^ my great obligations to thif gcntlo*
iDftD, who i», I uDdcrstana, connected t>y hit maniage with the fiunily of the poet
18
LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS.
mren ; they thought only of his genius— -of the delight his compositions
Ead diflfused — and they talked of him with the same awe as of some depart-
ing sjurit, whose voice was to gladden them no more." *
** A tremour now pervaded his frame/' says Dr. Currie, on the authority
of the physician who attended him ; ** his tongue was parched; and his mind
sunk into delirium, when not roused by conversation. On the second and
third day the fever increased, and his strength diminished.*' On the fourth,
July 21st 1796, Robert Bums died.
*< I went to see him laid out for the grave," says Mr. Allan Cunning-
ham ; ** several elder people were with me. He lay in a plain unadorned
coffin, with a linen sheet drawn over his face ; and on the bed, and around
the body, herbs and flowers were thickly strewn, according to the usage of
the country. He was wasted somewhat by long illness ; but death had not
increased the swarthy hue of his face, which was uncommonly dark and
deeply marked — his broad and open brow was pale and serene, and around
it his sable hair lay in masses, slightly touched with grey. The room
where he lay was plain and neat, and die simplicity of the poet's humble
dwelling pressed the presence of death more closely on the heart than if
his bier had been embellished by vanity, and covered with the blazonry of
high ancestry and rank. We stood and gazed on him in silence for the
space of several minutes — we went, and others succeeded us — not a whis-
per was heard. This was several days afler his death."
On the 25th of July, the remains of the poet were removed to the Trades
Hall, where they lay in state until the next rooming. The volunteers of
Dumfries were determined to inter their illustrious comrade (as indeed he
had anticipated) with military honours. The chief persons of the town and
neighbourhood resolved to make part of the procession ; and not a few tra-
velled from great distances to witness the solemnity. The streets were
lined by the Fencible Infantry of Angusshirc, and the Cavalry of the Cinque
Forts, then quarted at Dumfries, whose commander. Lord Hawksbury, (af-
terwards Earl of Liverpool), although he had always declined a personal
introduction to the poet, f officiated as one of the chief mourners. *< The
multitude who accompanied Burns to the grave, went step by step," says
Cunningham, *' with the chief mourners. They might amount to ten or
twelve thousand. Not a word was heard .... It was an impressive and
mournful sight to see men of all ranks and persuasions and opmions ming-
ling as brothers, and stepping side by side down the streets of Dumfries,
wiUi the remains of him who had sung of their loves and jojrs and domes*
tic endearments, with a truth and a tenderness which none perhaps have
since equalled. I could, indeed, have wished the military part of the pro-
cession away. The scarlet and gold — the banners displayed — the mea-
sured step, and the military array — with the sounds of martial instruments
of music, had no share in increasing the solemnity of the burial scene ; and
had no connexion with the poet. I looked on it then, and I consider it
now, as an idle ostentation, a piece of superfluous state which might have
been spared, more especially as his neglected, and traduced, and insulted
spirit had experienced no kindness in the body from those lofly people who
are now proud of being numbered as his coevals and countrymen
I found myself at the brink of the poet's grave, into which he was about to
descend for ever. There was a pause among the mourners, as if loath to
* In die London Mafudne, 1824 Artide, *' Robert Buns and Lord Bnoo.*
t tk> l|r. ^Toiehsy fiAtned Jdt. At'IMannid.
LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. cxxin
I
part with his remains ; and when he was at last lowered, and the first sho-
velful of earth sounded on his coffin lid, I looked up and saw tears ou many
cheeks where tears were not usual. The volunteers justified the fears of
their comrade, by three ragged and straggling volleys. The earth was
heaped up, the green sod laid over him, and the multitude stood gai*
ing on the grave for some minutes* space, and then melted silently away*
The day was a fine one, the sun was almost without a cloud, and not a
drop of rain fell from dawn to twilight. I notice this, not from any con- .
currcnce in the common superstition, that < happy is the corpse which the
rain rains on/ but to confute the pious fraud of a religious Magazine^
which made Heaven express its wrath, at the interment of a profane poet»
in thunder, in lightning, and in rain/'
During the funeral solemnity, Mrs. Burns was seized with the pains of
labour, and gave birth to a posthumous son, who quickly followed his fii*
tlier to the grave. Mr. Cunningham describes the appearance of the fa*
mily, when they at last emerged from their home of sorrow : — " A weep«
ing widow and four helpless sons ; they came into tlie streets in their mourn-
ings, and public sympathy was awakened afresh. I shall never forget the
looks of his boys, and the compassion which they excited. The poet's life
had not been without errors, and such errors, too, as a wife is slow in for«
giving ; but he was honoured then, and is honoured now, by the unaliena*
ble atfection of his wife, and the world repays her prudence and her love
by its regard and esteem."
Immediately afler the poet's death, a subscription was opened for the
benefit of his family ; Mr. Miller of Dalswinton, Dr. Maxwell, Mr. Syme»
Mr. Cunningham, and Mr. M'Murdo, becoming trustees for the application
of the money. Many names from other parts of Scotland appeared in the
lists, and not a few from England, especially London and Liverpool. Seven
hundred pounds were in this way collected ; an additional sum was for-
warded from India ; and the profits of Dr. Currie's Life and Edition of
Burns were also considerable. The result has been, that the sons of the
poet received an excellent education, and that Mrs. Burns has continuedl
to reside, enjoying a decent independence, in the house where the poet
died, situated in what is now, by the authority of the Magistrates of Dum-
fries, called Burns' Street.
** Of the (four surviving) sons of the poet," says their uncle Gilbert in
1 S20, *< Robert, the eldest, is placed as a clerk in the Stamp Office, Lon*
don, (Mr. Burns still remains in that establishment), Francis Wallace, the
second, died in 1S03 ; William Nicoll, the third, went to Madras in 1811 ;
and James Glencairn, tlie youngest, to Bengal in 1812, both as cadets in
the Honourable Company's service/' These young gentlemen have all, it
is believed, conducted themselves through life in a manner highly honour-
able to themselves, and to the name which they bear. One of them,
(James), as soon as his circumstances permitted, settled a liberal annuity
on his estimable mother, which she still survives to enjoy.
The great poet himself, whose name is enough to ennoble hb children*!
children, was, to the eternal disgrace of his country, suffered to live and
die in penury, and, as far as such a creature could be degraded by any ex-
ternal circumstances, in degradation. Who can open the page of Bums*
and remember without a blush, that the author of such verses, the human
being whose breast glowed with such feelings, was doomed to earn mere
bread for his children by casting up the stock of publicans* cellarii and rid*
/Hi
/ / • *
euur LIFE OP ROBERT BURNS.
ing over moors and mosses in quest of smuggling stills ? The subscription
fi»r his poems was, for the time, large and liberal, and perhaps absolves the
gentry of Scotland as individuals ; but that some strong movement of in-
dignation did not spread over the whole kingdom, when it was known that
Robert Burns, after being caressed and liattered by the noblest and most
learned of his countrymen, was about to be established as a common ganger
among the wilds of Nithsdale — and that, after he was so established, no
interference from a higher quarter arrested that unworthy career : — these
are circumstances which must continue to bear heavily on the memory of
that generation of Scotsmen, and especially of tliose who then adminis-
tered the public patronage of Scotland.
In defence, or at least in palliation, of this national crime, two false ar-
guments, the one resting on iacts grossly exaggerated, the other having no
foundation whatever either on knowledge or on wisdom, have been rashly
•et up, and arrogantly as well as ignorantly maintained. To the one,
namely, that public patronage would have been wrongfully bestowed on the
Poet, because the Exciseman was a political partizan, it is hoped the de-
tails embodied in this narrative have supplied a sufficient answer : had the
matter been as bad as the boldest critics have ever ventured to insinuate.
Sir Walter Scott's answer would still have remained — " this partizan was
Burns." The other argument is a still more heartless, as well as absurd
one ; to wit, that from the moral character and habits of the man, no pa-
tronage, however liberal, could have influenced and controlled his conduct,
80 as to work lasting and effective improvement, and lengthen his life by
raising it more nearly to the elevation of his genius. This is indeed a can-
did and a generous method of judging ! Are imprudence and intemperance,
then, found to increase usually in proportion as the worldly circumstances
df men are easy ? Is not the very opposite of this doctrine acknowledged
by almost all that have ever tried the reverses of Fortune's wheel them-
selves— by all that have contemplated, from an elevation not too high for
sympathy, the usual course of manners, when theii^ fellow creatures either
encounter or live in constant apprehension of
^' The tlioumind ills that rise where money fails,
l>cbts, threats, and duiiK, bills, bailitfs, writs, and jails ?*'
To such mean miseries tlie latter years of Bums's life were exposed, not
less than his early youth, and after what natural buoyancy of animal spirits
he ever possessed, had sunk under the influence of time, which, surely
bringing experience, fails seldom to bring care also and sorrow, to spirits
more mercurial than his ; and in what bitterness of heart he submitted to
his fate, let his own burning words once more tell us. " Take," says he,
writing to one who never ceased to be his friend — " take these two guineas,
and place them over against that «>►■•♦>»♦ account of yours, which has gag-
ged my mouth these five or six months ! I can as little write good things
as apologies to the man I owe money to. O, the supreme curse of mak-
ing three guineas do the business of five ! Poverty ! thou half-sister of
death, thou cousin-german of hell ! Oppressed by thee, the man of senti-
ment, whose heart glows with indcjiendence, and melts with sensibiUty,
inly pines under the neglect, or writhes in bitterness of soul, under the
contumely of arrogant, unfeeling wealth. Oppressed by thee, the son of
genius, whose ill-starred ambition plants hiui at the tables of the fashion-,
M^ and polite^ must see^ in suffering silence, his remark neglected, and
LIFE OF ROBERT BURKS. tttt
his person despiBed, while shallow greatness, in his idiot attempts at wit,
shall meet with countenance and applause. Nor is it only the family of
worth that have reason to complain of tliee ; the children of folly and vice,
though, in common with thee, the offspring of evil, smart equally under
tiiy rod. The man of unfortunate disposition and neglected education, is
condemned as a fool for his dissipation, despised and shunned as a needy
wretch, when his follies, as usual, bring him to want ; and when his neces-
sities drive him to dishonest practices, he is abhorred as a miscreant, and
perishes by the justice of his country. But far otherwise is the lot of the
man of family and fortune. His early follies and extravagance, are spirit
and fire ; his consequent wants, are the embarrassments of an honest
fellow ; and when, to remedy the matter, he has gained a legal commis-
sion to plunder distant provinces, or massacre peaceful nations, he returns,
perhaps, laden with the spoils of rapine and murder ; lives wicked and
respected, and dies a ♦•*^»** and a lord I — Nay, worst of all, alas for
helpless woman ! the needy prostitute, who has shivered at the corner of
the street, waiting to earn the wages of casual prostitution, is left neglect-
ed and insulted, ridden down by the chariot wheels of the coroneted rip,
hurrying on to the guilty assignation ; she, who, without the same neces-
sities to plead, riots nightly in the same guilty trade. — Well : divines may
say of it what they please, but execretion is to the mind, what phlebotomy
is to the body ; the vital sluices of both are wonderfully relieved by their
respective evacuations." *
In such evacuations of indignant spleen the proud heart of many an un-
fortunate genius, besides this, has found or sought relief: and to other
more dangerous indulgences, the affliction of such sensitive spirits had of-
ten, ere his time, condescended. The list is a long and a painful one ; and
it includes some names that can claim but a scanty share in the apology of
Burns. Addison himself, the elegant, the philosophical, the religious Ad-
dison, must be numbered with tliese offenders: — Jonson, Cotton, Prior,
Parnell, Otway, Savage, all sinned in the same sort, and the transgressions
of them all have been leniently dealt with, in comparison with those of one
whose genius was probably greater than any of theirs ; his appetites more
fervid, his temptations more abundant, his repentance more severe. The
beautiful genius of Collins sunk under similar contaminations ; and those
who have from dullness of head, or sourness of heart, joined in the too ge-
neral clamour against Burns, may learn a lesson of candour, of mercy, and
of justice, from the language in which one of the best of men, and loftiest
of moralists, has commented on frailties that hurried a kindred spirit to a
like untimely grave.
" In a long continuance of poverty, and long habits of dissipation," says
Johnson, ** it cannot be expected that any character should be exactly uni-
form. That this man, wise and virtuous as he was, passed always unen-
tangled through the snares of life, it would be prejudice and temerity to
affirm : but it may be said that he at least preserved the source of action
unpolluted, that his principles were never shaken, that his distinctions of
right and wrong were never confounded, and that his faults had nothing of
malignity or design, but proceeded from some unexpected pressure or ca-
sual temptation. Such was the fate of Collins, with whom I once de-
listed to converse, and whom I yet remember with tenderness.".
, f Letter to Mr« F«t«r liiU, bgolijeUer, Edinbur^, (Jcncud CoRe«pondaicf ^ p. 326^
etkVi LIfB OF ROfiERT BURNfd.
Burns wai an honest man : after all his struggles^ he owed no man A
ahilling when he died His heart was always warm and his hand open.
** His charities/' says Mr. Gray, << were great beyond his means ;** and I
have to thank Mr. Allan Cunningham for the following anecdote, for which
I am sure every reader will thank him too. Mr. Maxwell of Teraughty*
an old, austere, sarcastic gentleman, who cared nothing about poetry, used
to say when the Excise-books of the district were produced at the meet-
ings of the Justices, — '< Bring me Bums's journal : it always does me good
to aee it, for it shows that an honest officer may carry a kind heart about
with him."
Of his religious principles, we are bound to judge by what he has told
himself in his more serious moments. He sometimes doubted with the
aorrow, what in the main, and above all, in the end, he believed with the
ftrvour of a poet. " It occasionally haunts me/* says he in one of his let-
ters,-.-" the dark suspicion, that immortality may be only too good news to
be true ;" and here, as on many points besides, how much did his method of
thinking, (I fear I must add of acting), resemble that of a noble poet more
recently lost to us. *' I am no bigot to infidelity," said I^rd Byron, " and
did not expect that because I doubted the immortality of man, I should be
charged with denying the existence of a God. It was the comparative in-
aignificance of ourselves and our world, when placed in comparison with
the mighty whole, of which it is an atom, that first led me to imagine that
our pretensions to immortality might be overrated." I dare not pretend
to quote the sequel from memory, but the effect was, that Byron, like
Burns, complained of << the early discipline of Scotch Calvinism," and
the natural gloom of a melancholy heart, as having between them engen-
dered *' a hypochondriacal dinease,'' which occasionally visited and depres-
aed him through life. In the opposite scale, we are, in justice to Bums,
to place many pages which breathe the ardour, nay the exultation of fiuth»
and the humble sincerity of Christian hope ; and; as the poet himself has
warned us, it well befits us
*^ At the balance to be mute.**
Let US avoid, in the name of Religion herself, the fatal error of those who
would rashly swell the catalogue of the enemies of religion. ** A sally of
levity," says once more Dr. Johnson, <' an indecent jest, an unreasonable
objection, are sufficient, in the opinion of some men, to efface a name
from the lists of Christianity, to exclude a soul from everlasting life. Such
men are so watchful to censure, that they have seldom much care to look
for favourable interpretations of ambiguities, or to know how soon any
step of inadvertency has been expiated by sorrow and retractation, but let
fly their fulminations without mercy or prudence against slight offences or
casual temerities, against crimes never committed, or immediately repent-
ed. The zealot should recollect, that he is labouring, by this ^equencv
of excommunication, against his own cause, and voluntarily adding strengtK
to the enemies of truth. It must always be the condition of a great part
of mankind, to reject and embrace tenets upon the authority of those whom
they think wiser than themselves, and therefore the addition of every name
to infidelity) in some degree invalidates that argument upon which the re-
ligion of midUtudes is necessarily founded." * In conclusion, let me adopt
* lift of Sir TbomssBrowas,
tff fi OF ROfiERT BURMS; ^ ' ^ CMVii
r
die beautiful sentiment of that illustrious moral poet of our own timey
whose generous defence of Bums will be remembered while the lan-
guage lasts; —
" I^et no mean hope your souls enikve->
Be independent, generous, brave ;
Your** roET *^ such example gave,
And such revere, .
But be admonished by his grave,
And think and fear.^*
It is possible, perhaps for some it may be easy, to imagine a charactiP
of a much higher cast than that of Burns, developed, too, under circuin*
stances in many respects not unlike those of his history — the character of a
roan of lowly birth, and powerful genius, elevated by that philosophy whidi
is alone pure and divine, far above all those annoyances of terrestrial spleen
and passion, which mixed from the beginning with the workings of his in-
spiration, and in the end were able to eat deep into the great heart whidi
they had long tormented. Such a being would have received, no quel-
tton, a species of devout reverence, 1 mean when the grave had closed on
him, to which the warmest admirers of our poet can advance no preten-
sions for their unfortunate favourite ; but could such a being have delight-,
ed his species— could he even have instructed them like Bums ? Ought
we not to be thankful for every new variety of form and circumstance, in
and under which the ennobling energies of true and lofly genius are found
addressing themselves to the common brethren of the race ? Would we
have none but Mil tons and Cowpers in poetry — but Brownes and South-
ey^ in prose ? Alas ! if it were so, to how large a portion of the species
would all the gifls of all the muses remain for ever a fountain shut up and
a book sealed ! Were the doctrine of intellectual excommunication to be
thus expounded and enforced, how small the library that would remain to
kindle the fancy, to draw out and refine the feelings, to enlighten the head
by expanding the heart of man ! From Aristophanes to Byron, how broad
the sweep, how woeful the desolation !
In the absence of that vehement sympathy with humanity as it is, its
sorrows and its joys as they are, we might have had a great man, perhaps
a great poet, but we could have had no Burns. It is very noble to despise
the accidents of fortune ; but what moral homily conceming these, could
have equalled that which Burns*s poetry, considered alongside of Burns's
history, and the history of his fame, presents ! It is very noble to be above
the allurements of pleasure ; but who preaches so effectually against them,
as he who sets forth in immortal verse his own intense 83rmpathy with those
that yield, and in verse and in prose, in action and in passion, in life and
in death, the dangers and the miseries of yielding ?
It requires a graver audacity of hypocrisy than falls to the share of most
men, to declaim against Burns's sensibility to the tangible cares and toils
of his earthly condition ; there are more who venture on broad denuncia-
tions of his sympathy with the joys of sense and passion. To these, the
great moral poet already quoted speaks in the following noble passage—-
and must he speak in vain ? ** Permit me," says he, " to remind you, tluit it
is the privilege of poetic genius to patch, under certain restrictions of which
perhaps at the time of its being exerted it is but dimly consciouSi a
* Woidfworth*iftdd(fiitotfasioDsafBttnS|OaTiiiiioghUgTSTtial89l»
ewriii Ltf£ OF ROBERT BURNS.
fpirit of pleasure wherever it can be found,-— in the Walks of nature, and
in the business of men. — The poet, trusting to primary instincts, luxuriates
among the felicities of love and wine, and is enraptured while he describes
the fairer aspects of war ; nor does he shrink from the company of the pas-
sion of love though immoderate — from convivial pleasure though intempe-
rate-—nor from the presence of war though savage, and recognised as the
hand-maid of desolation. Frequently and admirably has Burns given way
to these impulses of nature ; both with reference to himself, and in describ-
ing the condition of otliers. Who, but some impenetrable dunce or narrow-
minded puritant in works of art, ever read without delight the picture
which he has drawn of the convivial exaltation of the rustic adventurer,
Ttm o' Shanter ? The poet fears not to tell the reader in the outset, that
hif hero was a desperate and sottish drunl<:ard, whose excesses were fre-
quent as his opportunities. This reprobate sits down to his cups, while
the storm is roaring, and heaven and earth are in confusion ; — the night is
driven on by song and tumultuous noise — laughter and jest thicken as the
beverage improves upon the palate — conjugal fidelity archly bends to the
■enrice of general benevolence — selfishness is not absent, but wearing the
milk of social cordiality — and, while these various elements of humanity
tre blended into one proud and happy composition of elated spirits, the
•nger of the tempest without doors only heightens and sets oif the enjoy-
ment within. — I pity him who cannot perceive that, in all this, though
there was no moral purpose, there is a moral effect.
^' Kings may be blest, but Tarn wis glorious.
O'er a* the ill* o' life victorious.*'
** What a lesson do these words convey of charitable indulgence for the
Yicious habits of the principal actor in this scene, and of those who resem-
ble him ! — Men who to the rigidly virtuous are objects almost of loath-
ing, atid whom therefore they cannot serve ! The poet, penetrating the
unsightly and disgusting surfaces of things, has unveiled with exquisite
skill the finer ties of imagination and feeling, that oflen bind these beings
to practices productive of much unhappiness to themselves, and to those
whom it is their duty to cherish ; — and, as far as he puts the reader into
possession of this intelligent sympathy, he qualifies him for exercising a
salutary influence over the minds of those who are thus deplorably de-
ceived.** ♦
That some men in every age will comfort themselves in the practice of
certain vices, by reference to particular passages both in the history and
in the poetry of Bums, there is all reason to fear ; but surely the general
influence of both is calculated, and has been found, to produce far different
effects. The universal popularity which his writings have all along enjoy-
ed among one of the most virtuous of nations, is of itself, as it would seem,
t decisive circumstance. Search Scotland over, from the Pentland to the
Soiway, and there is not a cottage -Imt so poor and wretched as to be with-
out its Bible ; and hardly one that, on the same shelf, and next to it, does
not possess a Burns. Have the people degenerated since their adoption
of this new manual ? Has their attachment to the Book of Books declined?
Are their hearts less firmly bound, than were their fathers*, to the old fiuth
md the old virtues ? I believe, he that knows the most of the countrjr will
* WoiUiworth*! jbctter to Grs/, p. 94
un ot aoBBST burns.
be the refuliest to answer all these questions, as everj loYer of geniui and
▼irtua would desire to hear them answered.
On one point there can be no controversy ; the poetry of Bums has hid
mpst powerful influence in reviving and strengthening the national feelings
of his countrymen. Amidst penury and labour, his youth fed on the ciU
minstrelsy and traditional glories of his nation, and his genius divined*
that what he felt so deeply must belong to a spirit that might lie smothered
around him, but could not be extinguished. The political circumstances
of Scotland were, and had been, such as to starve the flame of patriotism;
the popular literature had striven, and not in vain, to make itself Eng^iish ;
and, above all, a new and a cold system of speculative philosophy had be*
gun to spread widely among us. A peasant appeared, and set himself to
check the creeping pestilence of this indifference. Whatever genius has
since then been devoted to the illustration of the national manners, and
sustaining thereby of the national feelings of the people, there can be np
doubt that Bums will ever be remembered as the founder, and» alas 1 in
hia own person as the martyr, of this reformation.
That what is now-a-days called, by solitary eminence, the wealih of tbi
nation, had been on the increase ever since our incorporation with a greater
and wealthier state — ^nay, that the laws had been improving, and, above all»
the administration of the laws, it would be mere bigotry to dispute. It
may also be conceded easily, that the national mind had been rapidly clear-
ing itself of many injurious prejudices — that the people, as a people, ha4
been gradually and surely advancing in knowledge and wisdom, as well af
in wealth and security. But all this good had not been accomplished with*
out rode work. If the improvement were valuable, it had been purchased
dearly. " The spring fire," Allan Cunningham says beautifully somewhere*
** which destroys the furze, makes an end also of the nests of a tJiA^igy^^
song-birds ; and he who goes a-trouting with lime leaves Uttle of life in the
stream." We were getting fast ashamed of many precious and beautifill
things, only for that they were old and our own.
It has already been remarked, how even Smollett, who began with a
nat'^?"^^ tragedy, and one of the noblest of national lyrics, never dared to
make use of the dialect of his own country ; and how Moore, another most
enthusiastic Scotsman, followed in this respect, as in others, the example
of Smollett, and over and over again counselled Bums to do the like. But
a still more striking sign of the times is to be found in the style adopted
by both of these novelists, especially the great master of the art, in their
representations of the manners and characters of their own countrymen*
Li Humphry Clinker, the last and best of Smollett's tales, there are some
tnaits of a^better kind — but, taking his works as a whole, the impression it
ocmreys is certainly a painful, a disgusting one. The Scotsmen of theee
authors, are the Jockeys and Archies of farce —
Time out of mind the Southrons* mirthmakers—
the best of them grotesque combinations of simplicity and hypocrisy, pride
and meanness. When such men, high-spu-ited Scottish gentlemen, posses-
led of learning and talents, and, one of them at least, of splendid gentuiy
felt, or fancied, the necessity of making such submissions to the prejudices of
the dominant nation, and did so without exciting a murmur among their owji
countrymen, we may form some notion of the boldness of Bums's ezperi-
menti and on contrastiiig the sUite of thi^ then w^ what is befive ne
LM 09 ROBERT BORKBi
Boiff it will o6*t no eflbrt to appreciate the nature and cdoae^iieBeai of tlur
Yictofy in which our poet led the wajr^ by achievements never in their kind
to be surpaised. " Bams^" tayt Mr. CampbeU* «* has given the elixir vit«
t^ his dialect ;" — he gave it to more than his dialect. ** He wm,** says a
writer, in whose language a brother poet will be recognised—-** he was in
many respects bom at a happy time ; happy for a man of genius like him,
but fatal and hopeless to the more common mind. A whole world of life
lay before Bums, whose inmost recesses, and darkest nooks, and sunniest
eminences, he had familiarly trodden from his childhood. All that world
he felt could be made his own. No conqueror had overrun its fertile pro-
vinces, and it was for him to be crowned supreme over all the
*• Ljric lingen of that higfa-aool'd land.'
^nie crown that he has won can never be removed fh)m his head. Much
ii jret lefi for other poets, even among that life where his spirit delighted
to work; but he has built monuments on all the high places, and they who
fellow can only hope to leave behind them some fiur humbler memorials." *
Dr. Currie says, that ** ifjiction be the soul of poetry, as some assert.
Bums can have small pretensions to the name of poet." The success of
Bums, the influence of his verse, would alone be enough to overturn all
the sjTStems of a thousand definers ; but the Doctor has obviously taken
Jldion in fiur too limited a sense. There are indeed but few of Burns's
pieces in which he is found creating beings and circumstances, both alike
alien from his own person and experience, and then by the power of ima-
gination, divining and expressing what forms life and passion would assume
with, and under these. — But there are some ; there is quite enough to sa-
tisfy every reader of HaUowe'en^ the Jolfy Beggart^ and Tarn o' ShafUtr^
ifo say nothing of various particular songs, such as Bruce*s Address, Mae»
vherson^s Lament^ &c.), that Bums, if he pleased, might have been as large*
If and as successfully an inventor in this way, as he is in another walk,
perhaps not so inferior to this as many people may have accustomed them-
selves to believe ; in the art, namely, of recombining and new-combining,
varying, embellishing, and fixing and transmitting the elements of a most
picturesque experience, and most vivid feelings. <
Lord Bjrron, in his letter on Pope, treats with high and just omtempt
the laborious trifling which has been expended on distinguishing by au*-
drawn lines and technical slang- words, the elements and materials of poe*
tical exertion ; and, among other things, expresses his scom of the attempts
that have been made to class Bums among minor poets, merely because he
has put forth few large pieces, and still fewer of what is called the purely
imaginative character. Fight who will about words and forms, ^* Bums s
rank," says he, '' is in the first class of his art ;" and, I believe, the world
at large are now-a-days well prepared to prefer a line from such a pen as
Byron*s on any such subject as this, to the most luculent dissertation that
ever perplexed the brains of writer and of reader. /Sbilto, ergo sum, says
the metaphysician ; the critic may safely parody the saying, and assert
that that is poetry of the highest order, which exerts influence of the most
powerful order on the hearts and minds of mankind.
Bums has been appreciated duly, and he has had the fortune to be prais*
ed eloquentlyi by almost every poet who has come after him. To aocu*
Lltll OP ROBERT BURNS. ctt^t
BUdftte all iiM hit been aald of hmi» even hj men like himielf, of die first
order, would fill a volume — and a noble monument, no quettkm, tbat vo-'
lame would be — the noblest, except what he has left us in his own im-
mcwtal verses, which — ^were some dross removed, and the rest arranged ia-
a chronological order — ^would I believe form, to the intelligent, a more per*
feet and vivid history of his life than will ever be composed out of all the
materials in the world besides.
** The impression of his genius," says Campbell, << is deep and univer-
sal ; and viewing him merely as a poet, there is scarcely another regret
connected with his name, than that his productions, with all their merit,
fall short of the talents which he possessed. That he never attempted any
great work of fiction, may be partly traced to the cast of his genius, and
partly to his circumstances, and defective education. His poetical tempe-
rament was that of fitful transports, rather than steady inspiration. What-
ever he might have written, was likely to have been firaught with passion*
There is always enough of interest in life to cherish the feelings of genius ;
but it requires knowledge to enlarge and enrich the imagination. Of that
knowledge which unrolls the diversities of human manners, adventures,
and characters, to a poet's study, he could have no great share ; although
he stamped the little treasure which he possessed in the mintage of sove-
reign genius.*' *
** Notwithstanding," says Sir Walter Scott, <' the spirit of many of his
lyrics, and the exquisite sweetness and simplicity of others, we cannot but
deeply regret that so much of his time and talents was frittered away in
compiling and composing for musical collections. There is suflicient evi-
dence, that even the genius of Bums could not support him in the monoton-
ous task of writing love verses, on heaving bosoms and sparkling eyes, and
twisting them into such rhythmical forms as might suit the capricious evo-
lutions of Scotch reels and strathspeys. Besides, this constant waste of
his power and fancy in small and insignificant compositions, must neces-
sarily have had no little ^fiect in deterring him from undertaking any grave
or important task. Let no one suppose that we undervalue the songs of
Bums. When his soul was intent on suiting a favourite air to words hu-
morous or tender, as the subject demanded, no poet of our tongue ever
displayed higher skill in marrying melody to immortal verse. But the
writing of a series of songs for large musical collections, degenerated into
a slavish labour which no talents could support, led to negligence, and,
above all, diverted the poet from his grand plan of dramatic composition.
To produce a work of this kind, neither, perhaps, a regular tragedy nor
comedy, but something partaking of the nature of both, seems to have been
long the cherished wish of Burns. He had even fixed on the subject*
which was an adventure in low life, said to have happened to Robert BrucOy
whOe wandering in danger and disguise, afler being defeated by the English.
The Scottish dialect would have rendered such a piece totally unfit for the
stage ; but those who recoHect the masculine and lofly tone of martial spirit
which glows in the poem of Bannockbum, will sigh to think what the cha-
racter of the gallant Bruce might have proved under the hand of Bums. It
would undoubtedly have wanted that tinge of chivalrous feeling which the
manners of the age, no less than the disposition of the monarch, demanded ;
but this deficiency would have been more than supplied by a bard who
could havQ drawn irpm his own perceptions, the unbendip^ eoer^ qf %
czxxii LIFfi OP ROB£RT BORNS.
hero sustaining the dewrtion of friends, the perBecutioa of eneiniety «id
the utmost malice of diswtrous fortune. Theioene, tooi being putlj kid
in humble life, admitted that display of broad humour and exquisite pathos,
with which he could, interchangeably and at pleasure, adorn his cottage
views. Xor was the assemblage of familiar sentiments incompatible in
Bums, with tliose of the most e^calted dignity. In the inimitable tale ot
Tarn o* ShaTiter, he has lefl us sufficient evidence of his abilities to com-
bine the ludicrous with the awful, and even the horrible. No poety with
the exception of Shakspcare, ever possessed the power of exciting the most
varied and discordant emotions with such rapid transitions. His humour-
ous description of death in the poem on J}r. Hornbook borders on the ter-
rific, and the witches* dance in the kirk of Alloa is at once ludicrous and
horrible. Deeply must we then regret those avocations which diverted a
fancy so varied and so vigorous, joined with language and expression suited
to ail its changes, from leaving a more substantial monument to his owa
fiune, and to the honour of his country.*'
The cantata of the Joify JBeggarSf which was not printed at all until some
time after the poet*8 death, and has not been included in the editions of his
works until within these few years, cannot be con<udered as it 4eserves, with-
out strongly heightening our regret that Bums never lived to execute his
meditated arama. That extraordinary sketch, coupled with his later ly-
rics in a higher vein, is enough to show that in him we had a master capa-
ble of placing the musical drama on a level with the lofUest of our classi-
cal forms. Sepgars JBusIiy and Beggars Opera, sink into tameness in the
comparison ; and indeed, without profanity to the name of Shakspeare, it
may be said, that out of such materials, even his genius could hardly have
constructed a piece in which imagination could have more spleiulidly pre-
dominated over the outward shows of things — in which the sympathy-
awakening power of poetry could have been displayed more triumphantly
under circumstances of the greatest difficulty. — That remarkable perform-
ance, by the way, was an early production of the Mauchline period. I
know nothing but the Tarn o* S/tanter that is calculated to convey so hi^
an impression of what Bums might have done.
As to Burns's want of education and knowledge, Mr. Campbell may not
have considered, but he must admit, that whatever Burns*s opportunities
had been at the time when he produced his first poems, such a man as he
was not likely to be a hard reader, (which he certainly was), and a constant
observer of men and manners, in a much wider circle of society than al-
most any other great poet has ever moved in, from three-and- twenty to
eight-and-thirty, without having thoroughly removed any pretext for au-
guring unfavourably on that score, of what he might have l^een expected
to produce in the more elaborate departments of his art, had his life been
spared to tlie usual limits of humanity. In another way, however, I can-
not help suspecting that Bums s enlarged knowledge, both of men and books,
produced an unfavourable effect, rather than otherwise, on the exertions,
audi as they were, of his later years. His generous spirit was open to the
impression of every kind of excellence ; his lively imagination, bending its
own vigour to whatever it touched, made him admire even what other peo-
ple try to read in vain ; and after travelling, as he did, over the general
surfiice of our literature, he qipears to have been somewhat startled at the
consideration of what he himself had, in comparative ignanace, adventur-
rd| and to have been more intimidftted than encouragea b^ the retrospectt
■V.
LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. czzxSi
In most of the new departments in which he made some trial of his strength,
(such* for example, as the moral epistle in Pope's vein, the heroic satire,
Ac), he appears to have soon lost heart, and paused. There is indeed one
magnificent exception in Tarn o* Shanter — a piece which no one can under-
stand without believing, that had Bums pursued that vralk, and poured out
his stores oi traditionary lore, embellished with his extraordinary powers
of description of all kinds, we might have had from his hand a series of na-
tional tales, uniting the quaint simplicity, sly humour, and irresistible pathos
of another Chaucer, with the strong and graceful versification, and mascu-
line wit and sense of another Dryden.
This was a sort of feeling that must have in time subsided But let us
not waste words in regretting what might have been, where so much is.—
Bums, short and painful as were his years, has lefl behind him a volume
in which there is inspiration for every fancy, and music for every mood ;
which lives, and will live in strength and vigour — " to soothe," as a gene-
rous lover of genius has said — " the sorrows of how many a lover, to in-
flame the patriotism of how many a soldier, to fan tlic fires of how many a
genius, to disperse the gloom of solitude, appease the agonies of pain, en-
courage virtue, and show vice its ugliness ;" • — a volume, in which, centuries
hence, as now, wherever a Scotsman may wander, he will find the dearest
consolation of his exile. — Already has
t(
Glory without end
Scattered the clouds away ; and on that name attend
The tears and praiaes of all time.*' -t>
Tlie mortal remains of the poet rest in Dumfries churchyard. For nine-
teen years they were covered by the plain and humble tombstone placed
over them by his widow, bearing the inscription simply of his name. But
a splendid mausoleum having been erected by public subscription on the
most elevated site which the churchyard presented, the remains were so-
lemnly transferred thidier on the 8th June 1815; the original tombstone
having been sunk under the bottom of the mausoleum. This shrine of the
poet is annually visited by many pilgrims. The inscription it bears is given
below. Another splendid monumental edifice has also been erected to
his memory on a commanding situation at the foot of the Carrick hills ir*
Ayrshire, in the immediate vicinity of the old cottage where die poet was
born ; and such is the unceasing, nay daily increasing veneration of his
admiring countrymen, that a third one, of singular beauty of design, is
now in progress, upon a striking projection of that most picturesque emi-
nence— the Gallon Hill of Edinburgh. — The cut annexed to p. cxxxvL
exhibits a view, necessarily but an imperfect one, of the monument last
mentioned.
* Seetiie Ceoiara LitemrUof Sir Egtrton Bnrdni, voL ii p. 65.
t Leid^7loo*sGllildH•n)ld,Gtelloiv.80L
UFB OF ROBBBT BUBIOL
mSCUFTIOK UPON THE POETS MONUMENT IN
IMJMFEPSB CBVBCBYARP.
IM AniBMUM SONOllM
ROBERTI BURNS
rOKTAftUM CALZOONIAE SCI AIVI LONGS fftlMCini
CUJUfl CAKMDIA EXDOA PATUO HBMONB KUITA
AMUn MAGI8 ARDENTU TIQUe DIGBNn
QUAM A&TE VEL CULTU CON8FICUA
rACETm JUCUNDITATE IXTOES ATFLUENTrA
OMNUUI UTTX»ABUM CULTORUOT 8ATU NOTA
avis 8UI NECNON fLEBIQUB OKNII
MUSAIUM AMANTIfSIMl MEMOEIAMQUB THI
ABTB roencA tam praeclaei fotsmtei
HOC MAUSOLEUM
SUTER RBUQUIAf FOBTAE MORTALBS
EXTRUENOUM CURAVERE
PRDfVM HUJUS AEDincn LAFIOEK
OUUBLMUS MILLER ARMIGER
RBIfORUCAB ARCBITECTONICAE APUD 80QfIOf
HI BI0IONB AUfTRAU CURIO MAXDCUS PROVIMCIALIf
GEORGIO TERTIO REOKAKTE
GEOHOIO WALUARUM PRIKCIfB
•mCKAM UIPBRU PRO PATRE TBMBMTB
JOf BTHO GAM ARMIGERO DUMFRIKAB PEAIflCTO
raOMA F. UVVT LONOUfENn ARCHmCTQ
fosun
MOm jumn anno men ncoooav
9AI,|yXli XUIUICAI lUNXXXT*
-»l
ON THE DBATH OF BURNS.
The many poetical effusions the Peot's death gave rise Co, presents a
wide field for selection. — The elegiac verses by Mr. Roscoe of Livei^gQl
have been preferred, as die most fitting sequel to his eventful life.
OK
THE DEATH OF BURNS.
RSAm high thy bleak nugesdc hills,
Thy shelterM valleys proudly spread,
And, 8coTiA, pour thy thousand rills,
And wave thy heaths with blossoms red ;
But. ah ! what poet now shall tread
Tny airy heights, thy woodland reign,
Since he, the sweetest bard, is dead.
That ever breathed the soothing strain !
As green thv towering pines may grow.
As clear tny streams may speed along.
As bright thv summer suns may glow.
As ^tily cnarm thy feathery throng ;
Bat now, unheeded is the song.
And dull and lifeless all around.
For his wild harp lies aU unstrung.
And cold the hand that waked its sound.
What though thy vigorous offspring rise,
In arts, in arms, thy sons excel ;
Tbo* beautv in thy daughters* eyes.
And health in every Mature dwell ?
Yet who shall now their praises tell.
In strains impassioned, fond, and free,
Since he no more the song shall swell
To love, and liberty, and thee ?
With step-dame eye and iVown severe
His haplns youth why didst thou view ?
For aU thy joys to him were dear.
And all ms vows to thee were due ;
Nor greater bliss his bosom knew.
In opening youth's delightful prime.
Than when tnv favouring ear he drew
To listen to his chaunted rhyme.
Thy lonely wastes and frowning skies
1 o him were aU with rapture frau^^t ;
He heard with ioy the tempest rise
That waked him to subhmer thought ;
And oft thy winding deUs he sou^t, [fume.
Where wild-flowers pourM theu rathe per-
And with sincere devotion brought
To tbre the iuinmet*s eadicit bloook
But ah ! no fbnd maternal smile
His improtected youth enjoy*d,
His limbs inurM to early toil,
His days with early hardships tried $
And more to mark the gloomy void.
And bid him feel his misery.
Before his infant eyes would glide
Day-dreams of immortality.
Vet, not by cold neglect depress*d.
With sinewy arm he tum*d the sdl.
Sunk with the evening sun to rest.
And met at mom his earliest snule.
Waked by his rustic pipe, meanwhile
The powers of fimcv came along.
And sooth*d his lengthened hours of toil,
With native wit and sprightly song.
—Ah ! days of bliss, too swifUv fled.
When vigorous health fitom labour springSi
And bland contentment smooths the b«l,
And sleep his ready opiate brings ;
And hovermg round on airy wings
Float the light forms of young desire,
That of unutterable things
The soft and shadowy nope inspire.
Now spells of mightier power prepare.
Bid brighter phantoms round him dance t
Let Flattoy sjiread her viewless snare.
And Fame attract his vagrant glance ;
Let sprightlv Pleasure too advance,
Unveil*d fier eyes, undasp'd her zone.
Till, lost in love's delirious trance.
He scorns the joys his youth has known.
Let Friendship pour her brightest blaze,
Expanding all the bloom of soul;
And Mirth concentre aU her rays.
And point them from the sparUing bowl ;
And let the careless moments roll
In social pleasure uneonfined.
And confidence that spams control
Unlock the inmoet sprinfi of mind s
ON THB SBATH OF B7HN8.'
TTTiwi ilMiiif* JJlh ijilinflniii iIm,
OtSeMDM bidj bs fknoi'd llaitiDg
Bajotid the ptmunt'i humblci jojii,
And freed from euh libotioiu itiife.
Then let him leun the blio to nriie
Th*l Haiti the iodm ot poliih'd life.
Than whibt his throbbing Tdna best U^
With ereiy impulK of deheht,
Duh Aom hu lipe the cup of joy.
And ihtodd the iceae in ihidts of night ;
Aod let Deroii, with wizard liEht,
Diictoae the turning ^ulf below,
Aod pour inrpiiint on Ju* tighl
H(t ipeetttd illi and ihapea of woe :
And tbow bncalh a dieerlen >hed.
With eamwing heut ud etreunii
Id iilKit gM where droop* her head
■treuninc erea,
gr of hii eadj juri i
And let hii infaati' lendat oIm
Hit fbnd parental Mccdar dtila.
And bid him hear io W>nle>
A huiband'i and a tather'a name.
'Til done, the powerful charm ineeeeda ;
Hi* high reluctant apirit beoda ;
Id bittemsu of muI he bleeda,
Nor longer wiih hii fate conlenda.
An Idiot laagh the welkin lenda
A> ^iui thu< degraded liei ;
Till piifing Heiren the veil exiendt
That ihniudi the I'oet'i ardent ejes.
_ , . . valleyi pioudlj iprad,
And, Scotia, pour tliji thouaand lilli,
And wave Ihy heatha with blonom* ted ;
But nerer more shall poet tread
Thj airr heighli, (far woodland reign,
Since he, the gweeteit bard, it dead.
That era brealbad the aoothing ataiik
•• .
CHARACTER
or
BURHS AND BIS WRITINGS,
BT
MHS. KIDDELL OF GLBNRIDDIIX.*
Trb att^tidn of the public seems to be much occupied tt preMil widi
the loss it has recently sustained in the death of the Caledonian poet, Kd-
bOrt Burns ; a loss calculated to be severely felt throughout the litefirv
^i^iMrld, as well as lamented in the narrower sphere of private ilrie&dship. It
was not therefore probable that such an event shoiud be long onattendtC
with the accustomed profusion of posthumous anecdotes and memoirs which
are usually circulated immediately after the death of every rare and cele*
hrated personage : I had however conceived no intention of appropriating
to myself the privilege of criticising Bums*8 writings and character, or i
anticipating on the province of a biographer.
Conscious indeed of my own inability to do justice to such a subject, I
should have continued wholly silent, had misrepresentation and calumny
been less industrious ; but a regard to truth, no less dian afBection for thb
memory of a friend, must now justify my offering to the public a few at
least of those observations which an intimate acquaintance with Bums, and
the frequent opportunities I have had of observing equally his happy qua^
lities and his failings for several years past, have enabled me to comma*
nicate.
It will actually be an injustice done to Bums's character, not only by
future generations and foreign countries, but even by his native Scotland^
and perhaps a number of his contemporaries, that he is generally talked of,
and considered, with reference to his poetical talents onfy : for the fact is»
even allowing his great and original genius its due tribute of admiration,
that poetry (I appeal to all who have had the advantage of being person-
ally acquainted with him) was actually not hh forte. Many others, per^
haps, may have ascended to prouder heights in the region of Parnassus,
but none certainly ever outshone Bums in the charms— the sorcery, I
• lCn:iUddeU luiew the poet wcU s the had CTiry opportimity for obMnratioo of wl^
«A M of what wM nid of him and done toward* him. Her baantifUUy writtta JE^.-Menihr Mt ctadML
^^wMwaUieeiiiFidaiMlfeDcrallTciiMialidattlMttmc. U hia bi«i ineiitad ^1>r. Cmle talrie aeeS
•dUkmi^MtBterMtlnf ftomtoekoaee, and nthofitatlTe finon the writ«r» aceuxMe iB&cmattefti wthm
^MWftminpitiirtHysHiaaffcBihwi^ _
so
esanrll! _ CHARACTER OF BURNS AND HIS WRITIN08.
would almost call it» of fiucinating convenatioDv the nnintaiieoiif do*
quence of locial argument, or the unstudied poignancy of brilliant repar-
tee ; nor was any man, I believe, ever gifted wiu a larger portion of the
* vkrida vii amad.* His personal endowments were perfectly correqxm-
dent to the qualifications of his mind : his form was manly ; his action,
energy itself; devoid in great measure perhaps of those graces, of that
polish, acquired only in the refinement of societies where in early life he
could have no opportunities of mixing ; but where, such was the irresist-
ible power of attraction that encircled him, though his appearance and
manners were always peculiar, he never fiuled to delight and to excel*
His figure seemed to bear testimony to his earlier destination and employ-
ments. It seemed rather mouldea by nature for the rough exercises of
Agriculture, than the gentler cultivation of the Belles Lettres. His fea-
tures were stamped with the hardy character of independence, ,and the
firmness of conscious, though not arrogant, pre-eminence ; the animated
expressions of countenance were almost peculiar to himself; the rapid
lightnings of his eye were always the harbingers of some flash of genius,
whether they darted the fiery glances of insulted and incGgnant superiori-
ty, or beamed witli the impassioned sentiment of fervent and impetuous
affections. His voice alone could improve upon the magic of his eye : so-
norous, replete with the finest modulations, it alternately captivated the
car with the melody of poetic numbers, the perspicuity of nervous reason-
ing, or the ardent sallies of enthusiastic patriotism. The keenness of sa-
tire was, I am almost at a loss whether to say, his forte or his foible ; for
though nature had endowed him with a portion of the most pointed excellence
in that dangerous talent, he suffered it too often to be the vehicle of personal,
and sometimes unfounded, animosities. It was not always that sportiveness
of humour, that ** unwary pleasantry," which Sterne has depicted with touches
io conciliatory ; but the darts of ridicule were frequently directed as the ca-
Clce of the instant suggested, or as the altercations of parties and of persons
ppened to kindle the restlessness of his spirit into interest or aversion*
This, however, was not invariably the case ; his wit, (which is no unusual mat-
ter indeed), had always the start of his judgment, and would lead him into
the indulgence of raillery uniformly acute, but often unaccompanied with
the least desire to wound. The suppression of an arch and full-pointed bon
mot, from a dread of offending its object, the sage of Zurich very properly
classes as a virtue on/y to be tought for in the Calendar ^ SauUi ; if ^so.
Bums must not be too severely dealt with for being rather deficient in it.
He paid for his mischievous wit as dearly as any one could do. ** 'Twas no
extravagant arithmetic,*' to say of him, as was said of Yorick, that ** for
every ten jokes he got a hundred enemies ;*' but much allowance will be
made by a candid mind for the splenetic warmth of a spirit whom ** dis-
tress had spited with the world," and which, unbounded in its intellectual
sallies and pursuits, continually experienced the curbs imposed by the way-
wardness of his fortune. The vivacity of his wishes and temper was indeed
checked by almost habitual disappointmenU, which sat heavy on a heart
that acknowledged the ruling passion of independence, without having ever
been placed beyond the grasp of penury. His soul was never languid or
inactive, and his genius was extinguished only with the last spark of re-
treating life. His passions rendered him, according as they disclosed them-
■eWes m affection or antipathy, an object of enthusiastic attachment, or of
decided enmity ; for he possessed none of that negative insipidity of cha>
CHARACTBR OF BURNS AND HIS WRITINGS. cxkant
ncteri whose love might be regarded with indifference, or whose resent-
raent could be considered with contempt In this, it should seem, the
temper of his associates took the tincture from his own ; for he acknowledg-
ed in the universe but two classes of objects, those of adoration the most
fervent, or of aversion the most uncontrolable ; and it has been frequently
a reproach to him, that, unsusceptible of indifference, often hating, where
he ought only to have despised, he alternately opened his heart and poured
forth the treasures of his understanding to such as were incapable of ap-
preciating the homage ; and elevated to the privileges of an adversary, some
who were unqualified in all respects for the honour of a contest so distin-
guished.
It is said that the celebrated Dr. Johnson professed to " love a good
hater** — a temperament that would have singularly adapted him to cherish
a prepossession in favour of our bard, who perhaps fell but little short even
of the surly Doctor in this qualification, as long as the disposition to ill-will
continued ; but the warmth of his passions was fortunately corrected by
their versatility. He was seldom, indeed never, implacable in his resent-
ments, and sometimes, it has been alleged, not inviolably faithful in his
engagements of friendship. Much indeed has been said about his incon-
stancy and caprice ; but I am inclined to believe, that tliey originated less
in a levity of sentiment, than from an extreme impetuosity of feeling,
which rendered him prompt to take umbrage ; and his sensations of pique,
where he fancied he had discovered the traces of neglect, scorn, or unkind-
ness, took their measure of asperity from the overflowings of the opposite
sentiment which preceded them, and which seldom failed to regain its as-
cendancy in his bosom on the return of calmer reflection. He was candid
and manly in the avowal of his errors, and his avowal was a reparatiamm
His nsXvweJierti never forsaking him for a moment, the value of a frank
acknowledgment was enhanced tenfold towards a generous mind, from its
never being attended with servility. His mind, organized only for the
stronger and more acute operations of the passions, was impracticable to
the efforts of superciliousness that would have depressed it into humility,
and equally superior to the encroachments of venal suggestions that might
have led him into the mazes of hypocrisy.
It has been observed, that he was far from averse to the incense of
flattery, and could receive it tempered with less delicacy than might
have been expected, as he seldom transgressed extravagantly in that
way himself; where he paid a compliment, it might indeed claim the
power of intoxication, as approbation from him was always an honest tri-
bute from the warmth and sincerity of his heart. It has been sometimes
represented, by those who it should seem had a view to depreciate, though
they could not hope wholly to obscure that native brilliancy, which the
powers of this extraordinary man had invariably bestowed on every thing
that came from his lips or pen, that the history of the Ayrshire ploughboy
was an ingenious fiction, fabricated for the purposes of obtaining the inte-
rests of the great, and enhancing the merits of what in reality required no
foiL The Cotter's Saturday Night, Tam o* Shanter, and the Mountain
Daisy, besides a number of later productions, where the maturity of his
genius will be readily traced, and which will be given to the public aj
soon as his friends have collected and arranged them, speak sufficiently for
themselves ; and had they fallen from a hand more dignified in the ranks
«f society than that of a peasant^ they bad perhaps bestowed as unusual a
•ri CHAlACnnt OF BURNS ANP MB WIUTJWOg>
mee therey ueren in th» humbler ihade of roitic uupir»ti<» ftwn wbaace
tter rttlly tpmiig.
To the obicure iceiie of Buras's education, and to the laboriouB, though
honourable station of rural industry, in which his parentage enroDed him,
•fanott erenr inhabitant of the south of Scotland can give testimony. Hit
only sunrirmg brother, Gilbert Bums, now guides the ploughshare of hit
ibre&thers in Ayrshire, at a farm near Maudbline ; * and our poet's eldest
aon (a lad of nine years of age, whose early dispositions already prove him
Id be in some measure the inheritor of his father's talents as well as indi-
mioe) has been destined by his family to the humble employments of the
loom.f
That Bums had received no classical education, and was acquainted
with the Greek and Roman authors only through the medium of transla*
tions, is a fact of which all who were in the habits of conversing with him,
might readily be convinced. I have indeed seldom observed him to be at
a loss in conversation, unless where the dead languages and their writers
have been the subjects of discussion. When I have pressed him to tell me
why he never applied himself to acquire the Latin, in particular, a lan-
guage which his happy memory would have so soon enabled him to be mas-
ter of, he used only to reply with a smile, that he had ahready leamt all the
Latin he desired to 'know, and that was Omnia mncU amor ; a sentence
that, from his writings and most favourite pursuits, it should undoubtedly
aeem that he was most thoroughly versed in ; but I really believe his clas-
tic erudition extended little, if any, farther.
The penchant Bums had uniformly acknowledged for the festive plea-
turet of the table, and towards the fairer and softer objects of nature's
. creation, has been the rallying point from whence the attacks of his cen-
sors have been uniformly directed ; and to these, it must be confessed, he
shewed himself no stoic. His poetical pieces blend with altemate happi-
ness of description, the frolic spirit of the flowing bowl, or melt the heart
• to the tender and impassioned sentiments in which brauty always taught
. him to pour forth his own. But who would wish to reprove the feelings he
.hat consecrated with such lively touches of nature? And where is the
rugged moralist who will persuade us so far to *' chill the genial current
of the soul,** as to regret that Ovid ever celebrated his Corinnay or that
'Anacreon sung beneath his vine ?
I will not however undertake to be the apologist of the irregularidet
eren of a man of genius, though I believe it is as certain that genius never
was f^ from irregularities, as that their absolution may in a great met*
sure be justly claimed, since it is perfectly evident that the world had ooo«
tinned very stationary in its intellectual acquirements, had it never ^en
birth to any but men of plain sense. Evenness of conduct, and a due re-
gard to the decorums of the world, have been so rarely seen to move hand
in hand with genius, that some have gone as far as to say, though there I
cannot wholly acquiesce, that they are even incompatible'; besides, the
ftailtiet that catt their shade over the splendour of superior merit, are
nore conspicuously glaring than where they are the attendimts of mere medi-
* Th« frt0 of iliii wordij man it notioed at p. 302, where wOl be fisond » dsMrved tnbate
SDhblMnorj, (|brhe.too,alaal ii gone), fiom the pen of a friend.
t no pita of hnmnm the poet^ eldeet ion a manofacturer waa given up. Ha hat boen
jiMidksiit of tlMpabBeoffiees (the Stamp-Office) in London, when he eontiniMa ta fill
Iw|ijiii% a iiictsbli sitastkw. Bii stnking likenaM to the pott feas bin oftn if«
CHARACTER OF BURKS AND HIS WRITINOS. exli
Ocrity. It is only on the gem we are disturbed to see the dust ; the pebble
may be soiled, and we never regard it The eccentric intuitions of genius
too oflen yield the soul to the wild effervescence of desires, always un-
bounded, and sometimes equally dangerous to the repose of others as &tal
to its own. No wonder then if virtue herself be sometimes lost in the blaz«
of kindling animation, or that the calm monitions of reason are not inva-
riably found sufficient to fetter an imaginatio? which scorns the narrow
limits and restrictions that would chain it to the level of ordinary minds.
The child of nature, the child of sensibility, unschooled in the rigid pre-
cepts of philosophy, too often unable to control the passions which proved
a source of frequent errors and misfortunes to him, Burrw"* made his own
artless apology in language more impressive than all the argumentatory
vindications in the world could do, in one of his own poems, where he de-
lineates the gradual expansion of his mind to the lessons of the ** tutelary
muse/' who concludes an address to her pupil, almost unique for simplicity
and beautiful poetry, with these lines :
*^ I taw thy puke's maddening ^Axy
Wild send thee pleasure's devious way ;
Misled by Fancy's meteor ray.
By passion driven ;
But yet the light that led astray.
Was light from heaven /'* •
I have already transgressed beyond the bounds I haa proposed to my-
self, on first committing this sketch to paper, which comprehends what at
least I have been led to deem the leading features of Bums's mind and cha-
nu;ter : a literary critique I do not aim at ; mine is wholly fulfilled, if in
these pages I have been able to delineate any of those strong traits that
distinguished him, — of those talents which raised him from the plough,
where he passed the bleak morning of his life, weaving his rude wreaths
of poesy with the wild field-flowers that sprang around his cottage, to that
enviable eminence of literary fame, where Scotland will long cherish his
memory with delight and gratitude ; and proudly remember, that beneath
her cold sky a genius was ripened, without care or culture, that would have
done honour to climes more favourable to those luxuriances — that warmth
of colouring and fancy in which he so eminently excelled.
From several paragraphs I have noticed in the public prints, ever since
the idea of sending this sketch to some one of them was formed, 1 find pri-
vate animosities have not yet subsided, and that en^y has not yet exhaust-
ed all her shafts. I still trust, however, that honest fame will be perma-
nently affixed to Burns*s character, which 1 think it will be found he has
merited by the candid and impartial among his countr3rmen. And where
a recollection of the imprudences that sullied his brighter qualifications in-
terpose, let the imperfection of all human excellence be remembered at
the same time, leaving those inconsistencies, which alternately exalted his
nature into the seraph, and sunk it again into the man, to the tribunal
which alone can investigate the lab3rrindis of the human heart^-
*^ Where they alike in trembling hope repoic^
—The bosom of his father and his God,"
Gkat*s ELxay.
Jbmaniak^ /iugutt 7, 1796.
PhEPACE TO tHfi FIRST EDITION.
The Avowing trifles are not the production of the poet, who, with aO
the advantages of learned art, and, perhaps, amid the elegancies and idle-
ness of upper life, looks down for a rural theme, with an eye to Theocritut
or Virgil. To the author of this, these and other celebrated names their
countrymen are, at least in tlieir original language, afomUcdH shut 191, and
a book wealed. Unacquainted with the necessary requisites for commencing
poet by rule, he sings the sentiments and manners he felt and saw in him-
self and rustic compeers around him, in his and their native language*^*
Though a rhymer from his earliest years, at least from the earliest impulse
of the softer passions, it was not till very lately that the applause, perhaps
the partiality, of friendship, wakened his vanity so for as to make him think
any thing of his worth showing ; and none of the following works were com-
posed with a view to tlie press. To amuse himself with the little creatiom
of his own fancy, amid the toil and fatigues of a laborious life ; to transcribe
the various feelings, the loves, the griefs, the hopes, the fears, in his own
breast ; to find some kind of counterpoise to the struggles of a world, al-
ways an alien scene, a task uncouth to the poetical mind — these were
his motives for courting the Muses, and in these he found poetry to be
its own reward*
Now that he appears in the public character of an author, be does it
with fear and trembling. So dear is fame to the rhyming tribe, that even
he, an obscure, nameless bard, shrinks aghast at the thought of being
branded as — An impertinent blockhead, obtruding his nonsense on the
world ; and, because he can make a shift to jingle a few doggerel Scotch
rhymes together, lookmg upon himself as a poet of no small consequencei
forsooth!
It is an observation of that celebrated poet, Shcnstone, whose divine ele-
E*es do honour to our language, our nation, and our species, that *' HumUUy
iB depressed many a genius to a hermit, but never raised one to fame !"
If any critic catches at the word genius^ the author tells him once for all,
that he certainly looks upon himself as possessed of some poetic abilitiety
otherwise his publishing in the manner he has done, would be a manoeuvre
below the worst character, which, he hopes, his worst enemy will «ver
give him. But to the genius of a Ramsay, or the glorious dawnings of the
poor, unfortunate Fergusson, he, with equal unaffected sincerity, declares,
that, even in his highest pulse of vanity, he has not the most distant pre-
tensions. These two justly admired Scotch poets he has ofVen had in hia
Se in the following pieces ; but rather with a view to kindle at their flama^
in fiir servile ■twt»a»i/w-
nUf
PttttAdB TO THB FIftST EDltlOM.
To hit •ubfcriberty the author returns his most sincere thanks : Not the
uercenarj bow orer a counter, but the heart*throbbing gratitude of the
bardt conscious how much he owes to benevolence and friendship for gra-
tifying him, if he deserves it, in that dearest wish of every poetic bosom-
to be distinguished. He begs his readers, particularly the learned and the
polite, who may honour him with a perusal, that they will make every al-
lowance for educatioD and circumstances of life ; but if, after a fkir, can-
did, and impartial criticism, he shall stand convicted of dullness and non-
sense, let hmi he done by as he would in that case do by others — let him
be coodsnnedi without mercy, to contenpt and oblivion.
TO THE
NOBLEMEN AND GENTLEMEN
OF THE
CALEDONIAN HUNT.
My Lords and Gentlemen,
A Scottish Bard, proud of the name, and whose highest ambition is to
ting in his Comitry's service — ^where shall he so properly look for patron-
age as to the illustrious names of his Native Land ; those who bear the ho-
nours and inherit the virtues of their Ancestors ? The Poetic Genius of
my Country found me, as the prophetic bard Elijah did Elisha — at the
plough ; and threw her inspiring mantle over me. She bade me sing the
loves, the joys, the rural scenes and rural pleasures of my native soil, in m;^
native tongue ; I turned my wild, artless notes, as she inspired. — She whis-
pered me to come to this ancient Metropolis of Caledonia, and lay my
Songs under your honoured protection : I now obey her dictates.
Though much indebted to your goodness, I do not approach you, my
Lords and Gentlemen, in the usual style of dedication, to thank you for
past favours ; that path is so hackneyed by prostituted learning, that ho-
nest rusticity is ashamed of it. Nor do I present this Address with the
venal soul of a servile Author, looking for a continuation of those favours :
I was bred to the Plough, and am independent. I come to claim the coir
mon Scottish name with you, my illustrious Countrymen ; and to tell ...c
world that I glory in the title. I come to congratulate my Country, that
the blood of her ancient heroes still runs uncontaminated ; and that from
your courage, knowledge, and public-spirit, she may expect protection,
wealth, and liberty. In the last place, I come to prefer my warmest wishes
to the Great Fountain of Honour, the Monarch of the Universe, for your
welfare and happiness.
When you go forth to awaken the Echoes, in the ancient and favourite
amusement of your forefathers, may Pleasure ever be of your party ; and
may Social Joy await your return : When harassed in courts or camps
dzTi DEDICATION TO TH£ CALEDONIAN HUNT.
with the jo^tllngs of bad men and bad measures, may the honest consci-
% ousness of injured worth attend your return to your Native Seats ; and
may Domestic Happiness, with a smiling welcome, meet you at your gates !
May corruption shrmk at your kindling indignant glance ; and may tyranny
in Uie Ruler, and licendousness in the People, equally find an inexorable
foe!
I have the honour to be,
With the sinceres^ gratitude,
and highest respect.
My Lords and Gentlemen,
Tour most devoted humble servant,
ROBERT BURNS.
Edinbuii^gh, )
April 4, 1787. f
.*%* %
t^' - ^.
«■
^'i
I
^"
POETRY.
t
f
I'
POEMS,
■ •
CHIEFLY SCOTTISH.
THE TWA DOGS:
A TALK.
TwAt is that pUce o* SootlancTs itb.
That Imui ikm name o' Anld King OAU
"Ppop a bouiia daj ia June,
ythta wtariag thro' the afternoon,
Twa doga that were na thrang at hame,
Fofgather'd ance upon a time.
The firrt ni name they ca*d him Ctuar,
Waa keepit for hia Honour's pleasure :
Hia hair, his sixe, his mouth, his higa,
Show'd he was naoe o' Scotland's dog« ;
But whalpit some place far abroad,
"Where sailors gang to fish ibr cod.
His locked, lettered, hraw hroM collar
Show'd him the gentleman and scholar :
But tho* he was o* high degree.
The 6ent a pride na pride bad he ;
But wad hae spent an hour caresatin',
£v*n with a tinkler gipsey's messiii*.
At kirk or market, mill or cmiddie,
Nae Uwted tyke, tho* e'er sac duddie,
But he wad stan't, as glad to sec him.
And stroan't on stanes an* hillocks wi' him.
The tidier was a pkxighman's collie,
A rhyming, ranting, raving billie,
"Wha for his friend an* comrade had him.
And in his freaks had Luath ca'd him.
After some Aog in Highland sang,*
Was made lang syne — Lcnrd knows how lang.
He was a gash an* faithfu* tyke,
As erer lap a ahengh or dyke.
His honest, oonsie, baws*nt face.
Aye gat him friends in ilka plaoe.
His breast was white, his towiie back
Weel clad wi* ooat o' glossy block ;
His gawde tail, wi* npwanl curl,
Hnng o*er hia hordiea wi* a ewurL
• CiidMiUlBl dog to <MaB^ naftf.
NMdoabI but they were fiua o* ither,
An' nnoo padc an' thick thwithcr ;
Vi' aocial noise whylce snuffM and HMwIdt }
Whyles mice and mowdieworta thmr hoiHdl;
Whyles soour'd awa in lang evauniea^
An* worry*d itber in diTerdka ;
Until wT daffin weary grow%
Upon a knowe they eat them iow%
And there began a kag digi^ria^
About the lordM o* /Aia ermiiiM^
I've often wonder'd honest Zuath,
What sort o' life poor dogs like yoa hare ;
An* when the gentry's life I aaw.
What way poor bodies lived are.
Our Laird gets in his racked rente,
Hi« coals, his kaiu, and a' hia atents :
Ho rut* when he likes himsd* ;
His flunkies aiinver at the beU ;
He ra*s his coach, he ca's hia hoTM ;
He draws a bonnie silken poreea
As hn^r'n my toil, whare, thro* the eteeka,
The yeUow letter'd Geordie
J- a
Frae mom to e*en its nought bat toQio^
At baking, roasting, fi7ing, boiling ;
An* tho* the gentry fast are stechin'.
Yet ev*n the ha* fUk fill their pechaa
Wi' sauce, ragouts, and sic like traahtri%
That's little short o* downright waatriei
Our Whipper-in, wee blastit wonner.
Poor worthleee rif^ it eata a dinner.
Better than ony tenant man
His Honour hie itt a' the Ian* :
An* what poor oot-lolk pit their paiaeh imp
I own its past my comprehension.
LUATH.
Trowth, Caraar, whyles they're fiMh't
A cotter howkin in a sheugh,
Wi* dirty stanes biggin a dyke,
Baring a quarry, and sic like,
Himself, a wife, he thus sustains^
A smytrie o* wee duddie weana,
An* nought bat hia ban' darg , to keep
Them right and t%ht la thadk aa* iifeb
fl
■■J
BURNS' WORXB.
Am* wbon ditjr ntit wT nir dkuten^
liki lo« o' k«l^ ar wut of iBMlcn,
T« BAHt wid tliink, s ww touch Uagar»
Am' thc7 BUUiB tttam o* etnld amd huo^;
Bmty bo«r it cones, I iicT«r keii*d fet,
TlMjr^rt BMMtly woodcrfii* coatentad ;
Am* bvirdly ducb* tn' derer hisMt,
An bnd in ve a way at thia ii.
cjmaAm.
Bot thca to tea ham j«*re neglcekit,
IIo«r hnflTd, and cuff*d, and dismpeekit !
L d, man, oar gtntrj can at little
For dehren^ dit^en, amd aac cattle ;
They gaiif at nocjr bjr poor ib*k»
Aa I wad by a atinkinf brock.
iNre BO|ie*d on oar Laird't eonrt day
Am' moay a time my heart'a been wae,
p9or tenant hodiet, teant o' cath.
How they mann thole a fiictor*a math ;
He*ll etamp^m' threaten, cone an' twaar,
He*U apprehend them, poind their gear ;
mule they mann elan*, wi* aapeet homble.
Am' hear it a*, an' liar an* tremble !
I tee how iblk lire that hae richet ;
But eurdy poor iblk maun be wrctchet.
LUATH.
They're nae tea wretehed*t ane wid think ;
Tho' eonttaatly on poortith't brink :
They'n tae aoeuttomed wi' the tight.
The view o*t gi*et them little fright.
Then chance an* fortune an tae guided,
They*n ayo in leet or mair provided ;
An* tho* utign'd wi' doee employment,
A Mink o' rett't a tweet enjoyment.
The deareat comfbrt o* their live*.
Their grothie weant an' fiuthfu* wivai ;
The prattlin Uiinga an juit their pride
That tweeCena a* their fire-tide.
An' whylea twalpennie worth o' nappy
Can mak the bodiet unoo happy ;
They lay aaide their private caret,
To mind the Kirk and State af&un :
They'll talk o' patronage and priettt^
yrv kindling fiuy in their brnitt.
Or tell what new tazation't comio'.
And larlie at the fidk in Lon'on.
At Week fac'd Hallowmat retumi^
They get the jovial, rantin' kirne,
'When rurai VJk^ o' every ttation.
Unite in common recreation :
Love Uinkt, Wit dapt, an* eodal Bfirth,
Foifttt then't Can upo* the earth.
That merry day the year begins
They bar the door on firotty wiodt ;
Tha nappy redo wi* mantling ream
Tha hmtin' pipe, and ineatliia* miltp
An handed round wi' right gnid ndU :
The oantie aold fclkt creckin'
The yonng ante rantin' thro' the
My heart hat been aae fiun to aci
That I for joy hae barkit wi' them.
StiO if t own tma that ya haa aaid»
8ic game it now own aften piay'd.
Then't monie a creditable atoek
O* dceentt honeet, foweont fo'k.
An riven ont baith root and branch.
Some ratcal't pridefii' greed to quench,
Wha thinkt to knit himtelf tha foMer
In lavoun wi' eoroe gentle maater,
Wha aiUint thrang a paiiiamentin**
For Britain't gnid hit tanl indentin'— •
Haith, bd, ye little ken about it:
For ^ritaiVf ^mrf/— gnid fiuth, I dodH ill
Say, rather, gaun at PrtmitrM lead him.
An* tayin' aye or ne?» they bad him :
At operat an' playt parading^
Bfor^^tging, gambling, matquendiag ;
Or may be, in a frtdic daft.
To Hagm or CaUdt takca a waft^
To mak a tour, and tak a whirls
To learn htm ton and eee tha wori*
There, at Fidma, or VermSOa^
He rive* hit fiither't auld entailt !
Or by Madrid he takea the rout^
To thrum guitan and feeht wi' nowt ;
Or down Italian vitta ttartlet,
Wh — re-hnnthig among grovea o' myrtlce :
Then boutet drumly German water.
To mik himtel' look fitir and fiitter.
An' dear the coniequential eorrowt.
Love gift* of Carnival tignoraa.
For BrUaiiCa guid ! — for her dettruction !
Wi* diwipation, foud, an* foetunu
LUATR.
Hech man ! dear tin ! it that die gate
They watte tae mony a bnw attate !
An we tte foughten an' harait'd
For gear to gang that gate at latt !
O would they ttey aback frae conrte.
An* pleate thenndvet wi* oountn qporti^
It wad for every ane be better.
The Laird, the Tenant, an' the Cotter !
For thae frank, rantin', ramblin* billiety
Fient haet o' them't iO^heartrd foUowa ;
Except for braakin' o' dieir dmmer.
Or tpeakin' lightly o' their limmer.
Or thootin' o' a han or moor^^odc.
The ne'er a bit they'n ill to poor folk.
But will ya teU me, Matter CWaor,
Sun great folk*k lifo'a a lifo o' pleMnn!
Naa nuU or hunger o'er am ateer thea^
Tbt Ttr^ thought 0*1 and m Inr ihiiii
■; »■
P0BII8»
u
ejMAm.
L-hI, ttatt, Hrfft yi b«t wlqFfat wlnit I
The gcotiM yi wwl M*«r tttry 'tn.
It's trnt, tlMjr ntid am itanre or fw«il»
Thro' winter's euJd or siountr's hett ;
They're turn siir wtrk to emo the
An' fiU auld ift wi* gripn an' gnaca
But human hodim are aie SboIs,
For a' thrir coU«gM an* seboola,
That when nas real ilk ^tryHex them,
Thejr mak enow themselves to vex thtm.
An' aye the less they hae to start them,
la Uke |>roportion la* will hurt them ;
A eoontry Mlow at the pleugh.
His acrss till'd, he's right eneugh ;
A country girl at her wheel.
Her diaens done, she's unco wed ;
But Gentlemen, an* Ladies warst,
Wr cy'ndown want o* wark are curst.
They hiiter, lounging, lank, an* laiy
Tho* dcil hact ails them, yet uneasy
Tlkeir days insipid, dull, an* tasteless [
Their nighte unquiet, lang, an* restleMs ;
An* er'n their sports, their balll, an* raoc%
Their gaUopin* through public places.
There's sic parade, sic pomp^ an' art.
The Joy can scarcely reach the heart.
The men cast out in party matches,
Then sowther a' in deep debauches :
Ati, night they're mad wi' drink an wh-ring,
Neiat day their life is past endnrii^.
The ladies arm-in-arm in dusten,
As great and gradoua a* aa sbters ;
Bat hotf their abeent thoughts o' ither.
They're a' run deils an' jads thegithar.
Whyles o'er the wee bit cup ana platic^
Thry sip the scandal potioa pretty ;
Or lee lang nights, wi' crabbit leuks
Pote owre the devil's pictni'd benka;
Stake on a chance a furmer'a stackyard,
Aa* cheat like ony unhang*d bUckguanL
There's some exception, man tn* woman ;
But this is Gentry's life in common.
By this the son was out o' nght :
An' darker gloaming brought the night :
The bom-dock humm'd wi' la^ draw ;
The kye stood rowtin' i' the loaa :
When up they gat an shook their logi^
Beioic'd they were na wum but dogt /
And each took aff hia several way,
Basdv'd to meet aoaw ither day.
SCOTCH DRINK.
CMehlm strong drink, untU he wlakt
ThstTs sinkiBf In demdr {
An* limiOT ffuid CO BraSto binki,
Tktr* pwt wi' friiCiRir «Hf I
wr
TlUhe
Air
iBomneonsr,
htolMoriiM
kb 0106 no
Jttia,
'«jnrss«rbr,XBU.|,7.
*«»«M
Ln dthor poeCa nise « firaeai,
'Boot Tines, and winea, and druakea Saeehug^
An' erabbit aames an' storfea wrack as,
An' grate onr lug,
laingthejoice Sentibewren. nuk aa^
In glass or jqg.
O Thou, myMiuef gnid auld &ofdl Drink
Whether thro' wimpling worms thou jink.
Or, richly brown, ream o'er the brink»
In gkirioiis fiwm,
Inspire me, till I lisp and wink.
To sing thy naaM,
Let husky Wheat the hangha adorn,
And Aite set up their owaie hora.
An' Pease and Beans at e'en or mora,
Fsrlumt the plain,
Leeie me on thee^ John BarU^eom^
Thoa kiiy o' grun !
On thee aft Scotland chowa her cood,
la aonple soooes, the wail o* feod !
Or tumUia' ia the boUiag flood.
Wi' kail aa' beef;
Bat whea thou pours thy stroag heart's bkMM^
There thoa ahiaes chiet
Fond fills the wam^ aa' keepa oa Kvia*;
Tho* Ufe'k a gift no worth neeivia'.
When heavy dragg'd wi' piae and grievia* ;
But oil'd by thec^
The wheds o' life gae dowa-hOl, acrievm',
Wi* rattlia* glee.
Thoa dear* the head o* doited Lear ;
Thoa eheera the heart o' droopiag Care ;
Thoa atriaga dw aervea o* LaJbour aair;
At^ weary toil;
llioa evea brightena dark Dsi^
Wi' gkiomy smile.
Aft^ dad ia massy silver weed,
Wi* Qeadea thoa erecte thy head;
Yet hoBibly kiad ia tiaie o* aeed.
The poor maa'a wiac^
Si wee drap parriteh, or hia bread,
Thoa
Thoa art the fife o* poblie haoate ;
Bat thee^ what were oar feba aad raate?
Bv^ godly meatiBga o* the sauate,
By thee iaspir'd.
When gapiag they beuege the teats.
Are doaUy fir'd.
., -i
That
Osweel
OrrNkin'
aight we get the com ia»
thoa raaaa the hora ia !
a New-year aoraiag
In DOC or hlekiff
4:
inp ipMtiiil liani in,
Aa* gvttjr niclur !
BURNS' WORKS.
Tbou
WImb Vakan gic« lut heHowt brtath.
An* pkmifhoien gather wi* their gn'^^h,
O nee ! to ice the tin an* freath
r the li^Qcet raiip !
Then Bvrmtwm " comtB on hke death
t At i-y'r)* chau}>.
Naa mercy, then, for aim or sttvl ;
The brawDir, bainie, plnufj^hmin chiel*,
Bri«ga hani otrrehipb wi* Nturdy wheel,
Th«* stniof farehaniiner»
TiU bkick ad* ttiiddif rin|( an* reel
Wi* difuoroe clamour.
When aldrliB weaniea aee the 1if;ht«
Tbou maks the go>iip« clatter bright,
Uow fumlin* ciiiCi their dearies flight,
Wae worth the name !
Ifae bovlrdie grta a lorial night,
Or pUck frit tltetiL
When f houra anger at a plr^a,
An' ju«k aa vnd aa wud can Ik*,
How eaiy can the barlty bree
Cement the quarrel ;
lt'« aye the cheape«t Uwjrer'M ftv.
To taste the barrel.
AUke ! that e'er mf Miiw hi« ren^m
To wyte her rtnmtrymon wi* trrntun ;
But munr dailv weet their wea«oii
Wi* liquors nice,
An* hanlly, in a wintn*** Hi-smon,
E'er npicr her price.
Wae worth that hnndy, burning traith,
Pell wiurre n* nmnie a pain an* bra«>h !
TwiiiM immie a pwr, duylt, ilninken hash,
O* fwlf hi-. d:tv« ;
An* icoils beside, anM .^nttlMnd*!* cinh
To her warst f.!e%
Ye Scots, wha wish auld Scotland well I
Ye chief, to you my tale I t!*l],
Fdot placklcss devih like mysel* !
It setH yon ill,
HT bitter, dearthfu* wine* to mell.
Or foreign gill.
May gravels round his blather wrench,
An* gouta torment him inch by inch,
Wha twists his gmntle wi' a glonch
O* ao«r disdain*
Ont owre a glasa o^ tthtMkjf pmmth
Wi* honest men.
O WhiMkyf aool o* playa an* pranks !
Aeeept a Bardie's hnmble thanks !
When wantiDg ther^ what tuurisM ennki
Ara wy paw* Tttwa !
rtttlf i' tlieir nnb
At ithcr'a -— •
Thee, FerinhA / O sadly kit I
Seotland, lament frae coast to eoast !
Now colic grips, and harkin hoast,-
31ay kill us a* ;
For loyal Forbra' chartered boast
Is ta*en awa* !
Tliae rur^t horse leeches o* th* Excise,
Wha mak the WftMy SUlU their prize !
Haud up thy ban*, Deil ! ance, twice, thrice !
There, seize the blinkers !
An* bake them up in hrun«tane pies
For poor d — ^n*d drinkersi
Fortune ! if thou'U but gle me btlll
Hale breeks a ftiroDe,.au* \yiii»ky piU,
An* rowth o* rhyioe to rave at Mill,
T'lk a' the rest,
' An' deal*t about as thy blind skill
Direct* tbt-e best.
•jisiM<fi^^w»^%fvM«4lir MMiunltli-
TIIK AUTII0.1 S
EARNEST CRY AND PRAYER •
TO THE
SCOTCH REPRESENTATIVES
IN Ti:r
HOUSE OF CO!lLMONS.
Dearest of nistllhtion ! liMt an4 bet
iio* art thou )o*t ! Pamttff un J/i//sn.
r««M»«W«<hi^W^MW<atfMI
Yk Iri«h I.oniss Yc Kn'.'^bt* nn* Stjulrcn,
Wha rrprtrtnt our hru^lu nu* ^lurvv,
And douccly manage utur oiralrs
In parliament,
To you a simple Poets prayers
Are humbly sent.
Alas ! my roupet Muse is beanie !
Your honours* hearts wi* grief *twad pierce
To see her sittin* on her a —
Low i* the dust,
An* screichin* ont prosaic verse.
An* like to brust !
Tell them wha hoe the chief direction,
Softland an* me*« in great oflliction,
£*er sin* they laid that cnrst restriction
On Aquaviia ,
An* rouse them up tor strong conriction
An* more their pity.
•This was wrft^btfoee the aetansnt tbt Scotch
DbtiUerlts, of sesskn 1786| Itar vhtch Oeotlsnd an4
tbt Author iftttia Mr aon fBrtsfVU ttiHDto
■■*
POEMS.
St-.r.d frtitli. .in* tcTI yon pHmler Youth,
Till' luMictt, upc'ii, n>ik«Nl truth :
Tell him o* uiiuu aiiil SculiuiKrA ilrouili,
IIi*t sHMvantii hiiniblu :
The nuu'k'.c tlt-vil blaw y« u'jutii.
I; \o (1:n>cii.I*'c !
D:iL»!* ony prc;it nun j^lunch an* f;!om»» !
Spejk mit, an' never t-i^li vi.ur timiiib :
Let ]){i»i3i du' {K'li^iun-i vink or tonni
Wi' tucni uiid j;r.uit 'cm ;
If hunc^llv thev cjn:ia cmnis
9 0 '
VxT b.'lUT WJi'it V:ii.
In Ciitii'iiiv' vot«\s vrui wne n.i KU«k :
N«iw >tinil uj» ti;ji»t!y l.y yt>ur tirU ;
Ne'er cliu' vt.'.ir lu ■, .m ti.r'i.* vjuir l»:nk,
An* iittin ail' hiw ;
Lut r.iiro your arm, an' t.ll \tmr <"iavii
IiL'foi'c tl.v,'Ui a'
r.:i:it ?><-i';l.u;il rrittiji'j mvix* hiT t'liri^^Ic ;
Jli-r nmrclikla >i«im> :m ttwrn's m wiii-'flc ;
An' <l-uin'il I'xciMiiicn i;) .1 bisV.i*,
S. !/!:.* .1 .-1.//,
Tfit::;!j iTnrjt i-ruo.iirr: 1.1% • a nin-".-!,
<Jr I i;ii;i:i -li.ll.
TI-:in on t'.:' litii'.T !i niil i n-M •: lu-r,
A I' .M'k'^ii.irfl Siiui :i r 1: -.if In I.m; m.:".
An' tiiick-ioi-t !»'..u, .1 i'!i';lii'' N i!it..ir,
(' Mu jjinin;; ji>;iit
I'iiklivj licT puuili a* \i.\x\i as w Ukt.T
Or.t* kiiid ci)i;i.
Ih t'.iic, till* lu'/irx t'ne innn' (»' .S.*(v/,
l>ur li'vl • Lis I cut'"* l»'.»ii<l ri^n;^ lu»t,
'1 -.» "x-c lij'* i>'Hir .tu.il Aii!h«'r*> /i-»i
An' |ilt;i.ili'i'i! u' her !• ii>.:i::'»' «;rt»jf
}'»• ;; i:lou ■. !\i'..i\ i-'i
\\\^ ! I'aj l)iir a i;;;ir'«'.'*s \v:";iir,
T 1 1 lit- I ll«H III, re J-rt i»' si^lit I
Ll.1 I i»»«I:1 I i.Jvt' .'ttonf'.-oi.'fi'iirf fi.'litf
1 iic!i.*.i v)mc »Jik-«jrcKH I \va«l iliaw ti;4ht,
An' tie ^luiu! hir»o Mcl!.
Goil llr«H your llonnur!*, can yc vuo't.
Till.' kiii<i, atiii!, oaiiile C'lilin C''^'(-'ti
An' n»» j'tt WMnr.iv to \mjr !;vt,
An f;ir tiiAii hear it,
An* tfl! tlicin wV a {Mtrii t hejt,
Vc wiaua U-ar it ! '
Some <>* VMi r.irrlv Urn the l^iWss
To rduntl thr petit d an' |iun!-e,
An' \vi' iheUJiic ciaUM- on rl.i'i^';
To nuk huran^uen ;
Then echo thro* Saiat Srqihen'* ^v,l'^
Auhi Scutland*!! wrangn.
DempnteTt a true bbie S**ot V'^ warrnn ;
Thee, aith-dctcMinj;, cliaxte KUkerrum*
.An* that i^liL-gablKt Hi>{1i1ttiiil Airafi,
Th(* Uird o* iirakmm {•
An' ancy a chip thal'^ damn'd auldCirraB,
Danda* hi* name.
J'lrfhhif, a Kpcnkif Norland billie;
True C'liiuttinlft, J'/iuifrirk box Uajf t
All LictujMOiu-f iim bauld Hir WUlit ;
Au mony ithcn.
Whom auld I)i>ni(tothi'iie« or Tully
M ight own ii«r brithcn.
Ariiu*i», mv Ixivi* ! exiTt \our mettle.
• ■ m "
To ^ut an id Scotimul back htrr Mettle g
Or tttith ! I'll wad uiy near pieiigh-peCtlct
Ye'll Kev't or Ung,
Shell teacli yun» wi* a rit-kin* whittk'y
Aiiithcr aaug.
Th'.s \vhi!i.> s'tie*(t boeu in canu*roua mood«
j Ilcr l,ust Mihtin lir*d her bliild ;
I (licil na they never niiir do jruidf
I Pliy'd bur that pliakic!)
I An' now bile** like to riii rt-d-wud
Ab..ut her Wbuky.
An' L — d if ance they pit her tilTtt
Her tarua |H:tci(:iiit hhe'U hilt,
I Au' durk an* pii^tul ut h:*r Ult,
Slie'U tak the Urcets,
! Au* rtn her uliittiu to the Iiilt,
r the titM »he meets !
For (m — il nakp, Sir* ! tl.eu apeak her fmiTi
An* ktraik her rannie wi* the hair.
An* to the atncklc hmi«e repuiri
I V/i* instant t|)eeil»
' An* strive, wi* a* vour wit au* lear,
T'l jjel re'.ncaih
Yon iil-ton:;M'd tinkler, Charlie For,
Miv r.innl vou wi' his jeern an' inockf :
I'm: gic hunt het, nu' h,.artv rooks !
L'en cowe the caddit
An* xnd him to hi« niring box
Au* vportiu* lady.
To]\ yon c:niil bhild o* auld J3oi'konHoek\
I'll be h)h debt twa tnaahhim bannocks,
Au' drink hi» health in auld Aaiue Tiiinockt,f
Mne ti^iei a week,
If he iwme scheme, like tea and winoock9»
Wad kindly seek.
C)uld he some counityfatioH broach,
rU phfl^re my aith in gniil braid Scotch,
He need ua fear tlieir fjul repniach
Nur erudition,
Yon nuxtie>maxtic queer hotrh-potch»
The Cuaiitiutu
Auld Scotland has a raucle toi^ue ;
She's just a devil wi' a rung ;
• biT Ailum KvrgUKU.
• The premit Duks of Montros^-^IROO.)
t A worthy oM Hoatns 01' the Aiithiit's lu Jl/aaeft-
AiM. where be •omcfimci itudlei Pulinet orcr a |U«
[ant,
gukl auld Scoich Drink.
0
Am*ifilM
BUANS* WORKS.
taldarfomic
To tak th«r part,
■he ilMNild bettrungi
She*]! no dMcrt.
An' Boify ye ehoeen Fiv§ amd Forty,
M17 itUl yov Mithcr't heart rapport ye :
Then, tho' a Minuter groir dorty,
An' Uek your plaoe»
Ye*n anap yonr fingen, poor an* h«urty,
Before hit fiice.
God Men your Hononn a* yonr dayi.
Wi' MMipii 0* kail and brati o* claiKe»
In spite o' a* the thieriih kaca
That haunt St Jamie* !
Your humhle poet ainfpi an* praj-N
While Itah bis name is.
POSTSCRIPT.
Let half-stanr'd sUvca, in wanner iJuea
See future wineis rich cluiit*riiig rise ;
Thdr lot auld Scotland ne'er envies
But blithe and frisky,
She eyes her freeborn martial boys.
Tak aff their Whi»kv.
•
What tho' their Phoebus kinder warms
While fragranee blooms and beaut)- charmn !
When wretches lange, in fami«h*d swarui»,
The scented groves,
Or hounded forth, diithonour arms
In hungry droves
Their gun's a burden on their shouther ;
They downa bide the stink o* pouther ;
Their bauldest thought's a hank'ring s wither
To Stan* or rin.
Tin akelp— « shot — they're aS; a' throwther,
To save their skin.
But bring a SootMman frae his hill,
Clap in his cheek a Highland gill,
Say, auch ia royal G*org€*9 will,
An* there's the foe.
He has nae thooght but how to kill
Twa at a bknr.
Nae eanld, fiunt-hearted donbtings tease him ;
Daath eomea, with fiearieaa eye he sees him ;
Wi* Wttidy band a welcome gies him ;
An' when he &*s
His latest draoght 0* brrathin* lea'es him
In Clint hnnaa.
Sages their solemn een may ateekf
An' raise a phikisophio reek,
An* physically causes seek.
In dime an* season ;
Bot ten me WhUky^M name in Greek.
I'U teU the reason.
Soeldamd, my anM, rcapected Mither !
Tho* wbyka ye moiatify your leather,
Tn whara yt iU» flo'cnpi 0*
Ye nae your
{Fntiam Md WkUkg gang thai
Takaffyov
j)
THE HOLY FAIR.*
A robe of swming trotti and trust
Hid crsfty ObMnrstlon 1
And tscret nuM with poiian*d<
The dirlc of DeAunatInn :
A nwak that Ulce the |{or|{cC iho«*d
Dye-Tarying on the pigeoo t
And for a mantle larae and broad.
He wrapt him in BeUg^on.
Hlfpocriiy^4a moit.
mtmmm
Uros a simmer Sunday mom,
Wlien Nature's fiico is £ur,
I walked forth to view the com.
An* sDuff the callar air.
The riding sun owre Galtton muin,
Wi' glorious lij^ht was glintin* ;
The liaretf were hirplin' down the furs,
The Uv'mclu they were cbantin'
Fu' sweet that day.
II.
As lightjfomely I glowr'd abroad
To see a scene sae gay.
Three hiisie*, early at the road.
Cam nkelpin* up the way ;
Twa had manteeles o' dolefu' black.
But ane wi* ly4rt lining ;
The third that gaed a wee a-badc.
Was in the faahion shining,
Fu* gay that day.
UI.
The twa appear'd like sisters twin.
In festure, form, an* daes :
Their visage wither'd, lang, an' thin.
An' sour as ony slaes ;
The Mircf came up, hap-stap-an'-Ioup,
As Ught as ony lammie.
An' wi' a curchie low did stoop.
As soon as e'er she saw me,
Fu' kind that day.
Wi bannet aff, quoth I, < Sweet laaa,
I think ye seem to ken me ;
I'm sure I've seen that bonnie £ioe.
But yet I canna name ye.*
Quo' she, an* laughin' as she spak.
An' tak's me by the hands,
** Ye, for my aake, ha*e gi'en the feck
Of a' the ten commands
A screed some day.
* Hofy /Wrb aeommoo nhfiie in Che
Iwd for a saGnHiBHilal oaeaiioBt
P021I8.
V.
*' My nam* w PtM— ymir eronit davi
The nearest frieiid y« ha*e ;
As* this it StiperttiHoH hen.
An* thftt*t Hifpoeriti/.
Tri faun to — — Hoijf Fair,
To »pend an hour in daflin* ;
Gm ye* 1 1 f^o there, yon ruukled pair.
We will get £unout hnghin*
At them this day."
VL
Quoth I, < With a* my heart 1*11 do*t ;
rU fet my Sunday'* rark on,
An* meet ynu on the holy upot ;
Faith we*iie hue fine remarkin* !*
Then I gaed hame at cmirdie time.
An* ioon I made mr ready ;
For roads were clad, frae tide to side,
Wi' monie a weary body,
In droves that day.
VIT.
Here farmers gash, in ridin' graith
Gaed hoddin* by their cotters :
Their swsnkien younj^, in hraw hraiiUcIaith
Are sprintfin* o*er the jo'ttem.
The laMH% fikelpin* barefoot, thrang.
In siljFt An' N^rleta glitter ;
Wi' tntti'tnitk eherte in monie a whang.
An' furls bak*d wi' butter,
Fn' crniop that day.
VIIL
When by the plate we set our nose,
Weel heaped up wi' ha'pence,
A greedy glowr Black Bonnet throws,
An* we maun draw our tipptnee.
Then in we go to see the show.
On ev*ry side they're gathcrin*,
Some carrying deals, some chairs an* stools.
An* some are busy bletherin',
Right load that day.
IX.
Here stands a shed to fend the ■how*n9
An* screen onr conntra Gentry,
There, racer Jeu, an* twa-three whora»
Are bKnkin' at the entry.
Here sits a raw of tittlin* jadei,
Wi* hear in* breast and bare neck.
An* there a batch of wabster lada,
Blackgnardin* frae K ck.
For/vn this day.
Here some are thinkin* on their aini^
An* some upo* tfanr cJaea ;
Ane cunert feet tkat lyi'd hu shins,
Anither sigha aa* prays ;
On this hand sits n chosen swatch,
Wi* screw'd up grace-proad £ices ;
On that a set o' chaps at watch,
Thrang winkin* on the laaies
To chain tim dqr>
XL
O happy ia the man an* Hmk !
Nae wonder that it pride him !
Wha's ain dear Uss, that he lik« bei^
Comes dinkin* down b«ido himl
Wi* arm repoa'd on the ehair>bid^
He sweetly dooa oonpoae him !
Which, by digiem, iUm ronnd hm
An's loof upon her iMoom
Cokenn'd that day*
XIL
Now a* the congregation o*er
Is silent expectatkm ;
For speels the holy door
Wi' tidings o* damnation.
Should Humir, wt in ancient days,
'Mang sons o' God present hiniy
The vera sight o* *s free,
To's ain bet hame had sent him
Wi* fright that day;
XUL
Hear how he rlean the points o' faith
Wi' ratUin* an* thumpiu' !
Now meekly calm, now wild in wrath,
He's Htampin* an* he's jumpin' '
His lengthen*d chin, his tum'd-up snoatt
His eldritch squeel and gestures.
Oh, how they fire the heart devout.
Like cantharidian plasters,
On sic a day !
XIV.
But hark ! the iemt has chang'd its voice ;
There's peace and rest nae langer :
For a' the rtaijwdgtM rise,
They canna sit for anger.
opens out his cauld harangues
On practioe and on morals ;
An* aff the godly pour in thraogs,
To gie the jars an* barrels
A lift that day.
XV.
What signifies his barren shine
Of moral pow'rs and reason }
His English style, an' gesture fine.
Are a* clean out o* season.
Like Socraim or Antomme,
Or some auld pagan Heathen,
The moral man he does define.
But ne'er a word o' &ith in
That's right that day
XVL
In guid time oomes an antidote
Against aic poison'd nostrum :
For , frse the watei-fit.
Ascends the holy rostrum :
See, up he's got the word o' God,
Ab* meek an* mim haa viewed ity
8
BURNS' WORKS.
Whik Cbminofi-JtAM lutf ta'tn the road.
Ad* ail^ an* up th« Cowgate,*
Fatty fust, that daj.
Wee
XVIL
neirt the guard relierae,
An' orthodoxy raiblee*
Tho* in hie heart he weel belieree.
And think* it auld wives* hb)m :
Bat, fiuth ;. the birkie wants a manse
So eanniljr ha hums them ;
Altho' his carnal wit and sense
Like haffiins-ways o'crcomes him
At times that day.
xvra.
Now but an' ben, the change-houat fi]]%
Wi' yill-canp commentators :
Here*8 crying o«t for bskes and gills,
And there the |>int stoup dattera;
While thick an' tiirang, an* luud an* lang,
Wi' logic, an* wi* Scripture,
They raise a din, that in the end,
Is like to breed a rupture
O* wrath that day.
XIX.
Lecfe mi M Drink ! it gi*es us mair
Tliaa either School or CoUcg* :
It kioiha wit^ it waukens lair,
It pangs ua foa o* knowledge.
Be*t whidqr giU* or penn^ wheep,
Or ony stronger potion,
It never foili^ oo drinking deep.
To kittle up our notion
By night or day.
XX.
The lada an* lasses, blythely bent
To mind baith saul an* body.
Sit round the table weel content,
An' steer about the toddy.
On this ane's dress, an* that ase's leuk,
They*re makin* observations ;
While some are cosie i* the neuk,
An' forming assignations
To meet some day.
XXL
Bnt now the L — d's ain trumpet touts,
Till a' the hills are rairin',
An' echoes back return the ahouts :
Black is na spairin* :
Hia piercing words, like Highland swordi^
Divide the joints an' marrow ;
His talk o' Hell, where devils dwell,
Oar very sauls does harrow f
Wi* fright that day.
XXU.
A vast, unbottom'd bonndlees pit,
Fill'd fou o* lowin' brunstane.
• A stxeet lo called, which faoet the tgni in
j Shakespeare^ Hamlet
Wha's ragin* flame an* icorchin* heat,
Wdd melt the harde»t whun-ataoe !
The hdif a>Jcep itort up wi' fear.
An* think they hear it roaxin*.
When presently it rlot-a appear,
'Twos but iwuie neighbuur snorin*
Attleep that day.
XXIII.
*T\rad bo owre lang a tale to tell
How monie stori&i past.
An* how they crowdod to the yill.
When they were a* dismist :
How drink gaed round, in cogs, an* caups,
Amang the furms an' benches ;
An* cheese an' bread, frae women*s laps.
Was dealt about in lunches
An* dawds that day.
XXIV.
In comet a gaucie, ganh guidwifo,
An* sits down by the fire,
Syne draws her kebbuck an' her knife^
The losses they are ahyer.
The auld (ruidmen, about the gract^
Frae aide to side they bother.
Till some ahe by his bonnet lays.
An' gi'et them't like a tether,
Fu' lang that day^
XXV.
Waesncks ! for him that gets nae lais,
Or lasses that hae naething !
Sma' need has he to say a grace
Or melvie his braw claidiing !
O wives be mindfu* ance yoursel*
How bonnie lads ye wanted.
An' dinna for a kebbuck-heel.
Let lanes be affironted
On sic a day !
XXVL
Now Clinkumhdlt wi' rattlin' tow,
Begins to jow an' croon ; *
Some swagger hame, the best they dow,
Some wait the afternoon.
At slups the billies halt a blink,
Till lasses strip their shoon :
Wi* faith an* hope, an* lovu an' drink,
They're a* in famous tune.
For crack that day.
XXVIL
How monie hearts this day converts
O' sinners and o* lasses !
Their hearts o' Rtanc, gin night, are gane
As saft as ony fle^li in.
There's some are fnu o* love divine ;
Thci'e'a some ore fou o' hrantly ;
An' mooy jobs that day hegifi.
!^Iay end in liougliniugandttT
iSoiac iihcr dav.
POEMS.
DEATH AND DOCTOR HORN-
BOOK:
A TBUE STORY.
So5is books are lies frae end to end,
And some great lies were never pennM :
Ev'n Alinijiters, they hac bt>en kenn*d»
In lioly rapture,
A rousing whid, at times, to vend,
Aad. nail't \vi* Scripture.
Put thiH tliat I am gaun to toll,
\\*>iich lately on s night liefell.
Is just Ob truc*s the Dc*i]j< in hell
Or Dublin city :
That c*o' he nearer comes ourwl*
*S a muckle pity.
The Clachan yiil had made me cantVy
I was nae fou, but just had plenty ;
I 6tacher*d whilus, but yet took tent aye
To free the ditcheH ;
An* hillocks, stanea, an* bushes, kcnn*d aye
Fra£ ghaists an* witchi'^.
The rising nuwn began to glow'r
The distant Cumnock hills out-owre ;
To count her horns, wi* a* my power,
I set mysel' ;
But whether she had three or four,
I couldna tell.
I was come round about the hill.
And todlin down on Wille's null.
Setting my staff wi* a* my skill.
To keep me sicker ;
Tho' leeward whyles, against my will,
I took a bicker.
I there wi* SomeUiiny did forgather,
That put me in an eerie swither t
An* awfu* scythe, out-owre ae shouther,
Clear-dangling, hang ;
A three-taed leister on the ither.
Lay, hirge and lang.
Its itature aeem'd lang Scotch ells twa,
The queerest shape that e*er I saw,
For fient a wame it had ava ;
And then, its shanks.
They were as thin, as sharp, an* sma*
As cheeks o* branks.
* Guid-een,*quo*I ; ' Friend ! hac ycbeenmawin*,
"When ither folk are busy sawin* ?' *_
It seem'd to mak' a kind o* stan*.
But naething spak :
At length, says I, < Friend, where ye gann,
Will ye go back V
It spak right howe, — < My name if Deaths
Bat be na fley'd.'~Qaoth I, < Guid faith,
Ye're maybe come to stap my breath ;
Bnt tent me, biUie :
In
1785.
I red ye weel, Uk em e* akaith.
See there*! ft gully!'
< Guidman,* quo* he, * put up your whitd^
Tm no de8ign*d to try its mettle ;
But if I did, I wad be kittle
To be mislearM,
I wadna mind it, no, that spittle
Out owre my beard.
< Woel, wecl !* says I, « a bargain be*t ;
Come, gie*s your hand, an* sae we*re gree*t ;
We'll ease our shanks an* tak a seat,
Come gie*8 your newa ;
This while * ye luc been niuny a gate,
At mony a house*
< Ay, ay !' quo* he, a:i* shook his head,
' Its cun a lang, lun'^ time indeed
Siu* I br;.-tn to nick the thread.
An* choke the breath:
Folk maun do hometiiini^ for their bread,
Au* sae maun Dtath.
* Sax thousand ycjrs are nearhand fled
Siu* I was to the butchinf; bred.
An* mony a scheme in vaiu's been laid,
'i\> htap or scar me ;
Till aue Iloruhook *s f tuen up the tnde.
An' faith, he*ll winr
' Ye ken Jttck Ilornbookt V the Clachan,
Deil mak his king*s hood in a spleuchan !
He*s grown sae wcel acquaint wi* JBuckau i
An' ither chaps,
The weans baud out their fingers laughin*
An* pouk my hips.
' See, here's » scythe, and there's ft dart.
They hae pierc'd mony a gallant heart :
But Doctor Hornbook, wi* his art
And cursed skill,
Haa made them baith no worth a f t,
Damn'd kact they'll kilU
* *Twaa but yestreen, nae £urther gaen,
I threw ft noble throw at ane ;
Wi' less, I'm suiu, I've hundreda slain ;
But deil-ma-core,
It just play'd dirl on the bane,
But did nae niair.
< Hornbook was by, wi' ready art.
And had sae fortified the part.
That when I looked to my dart,
It was sae blunt,
Fient haet o*t wad hae pierc'd the heart
Of ft kail-runt.
' I drew my scythe in sic ft fury.
* An epidemioal fever was then raging In that eounfrib
t This gcntienun. Dr. Hortdoottn, proftssiaoalnf
a brother of the Sovanign Order of the FerttlaiWl
by intuition and insplratk»« is at once an ApoCliaeanb
SuifsoD, and Physidan.
t Bumaafls Domastte Madieinflk
33
»
10
BURNS' WORKS.
I aMrlim^ eoaplt wT 1117 Korrj^ .
WithHood the diock ;
1 Bii^l M wid bae tried a qiurrjr
O' hard wkia rodu
* Et'b ihm ha eanna get attended,
Ahlio* tbeir ftct he ne'er had ken'd it,
jMt ■ in a kail-Uade, and eend it,
Aa icon's he tmelb't,
Baith their diaeaie, and what will mend it,
At once he tella't
* An* then a' doctors' saws and whittles,
Of a* dimensions, shapes, an* mettles,
A' kinds o* boxes, mugs, an' bottles
He's sure to hae ;
Thair Latin namea u fast he rattles
AsABa
* Calces o* fiisails, earths, and trees ;
True Sal-marinum o* the seas ;
TIm Farina of beans and pease.
He has't in plmty ;
Aqna-fiootis what yon please.
He can content ye.
* Fdfbye soma new, uneommoo weapons,
Urinus &»ritns of capons ;
Or Mite-bom sharings, filings, scrapings ;
DistUl'd per $t ;
8al-alkali o* Midge-tail dippins.
An* monymae.'
* Wae« me for Johnnf Ged^s HoU * now ;*
Qno* I, < If that the news be tme 1
His braw calf-ward where gowans grew,
Sae white an* bonnie,
Nae doubt they'll rive it wi* the plough ;
They*ll ruin Johnny /*
The creature grain'd an eldritch laugh.
An' says, * Ye need na yoke the pleugh,
Kirit-yards will soon be till'd eneugh,
Tak ye nae fear ;
They'll a* be trench'd wi mony a sheugh
In twa-thne year.
* Whare I kill'd ane a fiur strae death,
9r loss o* bkM)d or want o* breath.
This night I'm free to tak my aith.
That HomboiA** skiU
Has dad a score i* their last elaith.
By drap an* pilL
* An honcat Wabster to his trade,
Vhase wife's twa nievea were scarce weel bred^
Gat tippence-worth to mend her head.
When it was sair ;
The wife slade eannie to her bed.
But ne'er spik mair.
« A coontra Laird had ta'ea the batts,
Or soma enrmurring in his guts.
ffia only aoa for Blonhook sets.
An' pays hun wdl }
The lad, for twa guid gimmer nets,
Was laird hinMel'.
' A bonnie lass, ye ken her name.
Some iUobrewn drink had hor'd her wame ;
She trusts henel*, to hide the shame.
In HontbooJCt care ;
Ham sent her aff to her lang hame,
To hide it there.
< That's just a swatch o* Hornbook* t way ;
Thus goes he on from day to day.
Thus does he poison, kill, an* slay,
An's wed pud for't ;
Yet stopa me o* my lawfu* prey,
Wi* hU damn'd dirt
« But hark ! I*U tell you of a plot.
Though dinna ye be speaking o*t ;
ril nail the self- conceited sot.
As dead's a herrin* ;
Neiat time we meet, 1*11 wad a gront,
He gets his fairin* !*
But just as he began to tell.
The auld kirk-hammer strak the bell.
Some wee short hour ayont the twal^
Which raii'd us baith *
I took the way that pleased mysel*.
And sae did Ihath,
THE BRIGS OF AYR ;
A POEM.
Iksceibed to J. B-
-, £jiQ. Aye.
• ThapiT»dta«*
The dimple Bard, rough at the rustic plough.
Learning his tuneful trade from every hough ;
The chanting linnet, or the mellow thrush,
Hailing the setting sun, sweet, in the green
thorn bush :
The Noariog lark, the perching red-breast shrill.
Or deep-toned plovers, grey, wild whistling o'er
the hill ;
Shell he, nurst in the Peasant*s lowly shed,
To hardy independence bravely bred.
By early Poverty to hardship sted'd,
And train*d to anna in stem MisfortuM*s
field-
Shall he be guilty of their hirding crimes^
The servile, mercenary Swiss of rhymes ?
Or labour hard the panegyric dose.
With dl the vend soul dP dedicating Prose?
No ! though his artless strdns he rudely sings.
And throws his hand unoouthly o*er the strings.
He glows with all the spirit of the Bard,
Fame, honest feme, his great, hia dear reward.
Still, if some Patron's generous care he trace.
Skilled in the secret, to bestow with grace ; -
When B befriends his humbla name^
I And handa tha rnatic atrypgcr up to £un%
I
POEMS*
11
Witb iMtrt-ftH Utfon liif frataAil boMMn
■veUi,
Tht godlikfl bliM, to ghrt alou cxodt.
*Twu wlien the itacln g«t on their winter
And thack tnd npe secure tbe toil-won cnp :
Potatoe binfca ire inagged up fne tkaith
Of coming Winter's biting, frosty bretth ;
The bees, njoicing o'er their simmer toils,
Unnumber'd buds an' flowers* delidous vpoSk,
Seal'd up with frugal care in maasire waxen
piles,
Are doom'd bv man, that tynnt o'er the weak,
The death o derils, smoor'd wi* brimstone
reek:
The thundering guns are heard on er'ry wde,
Tlie wounded coveys, reeling, scatter wide ;
The feather *d field-mates, bound by Nature's tic»
Sires, mothers, children, in one carnage lie :
( What warm, poetic heart, but inly bluedis
And execrates man's savage, ruthless dccdv) !
Nae mair the flow*r in field or meadow upringa :
Nae mair the grove wi* air\' concert rin'fs
Except, perhaps, the Robin's whiHtliug ^lec.
Proud o* the height o* some bit half-lang tree :
The hoary moms precede the sunny (U\'s
Mild, calm, serene, wide spreads the noontide
blaze.
While thick the gossamour waves wanton in
the rays.
*Twas in that season, when a simple bard,
Unknown and poor, simplicity's reward,
Ae night, within the ancient brugh of Ayr,
By whim inspired, or haply prest wi' care,
He left his bed, and took his wayward route,
And down by Simpion**'^ wheel 'd the left
about:
(Whether impell'd by all-directing Fale
To witness what I after shall narrate ;
Or whether rapt in meditation high.
He wander'd out he knew not where nor why),
The drowsy X>ini^eo»-c2ocA,f had number'd two.
And WaUae* tower f had sworn the £ict was
true:
The tide-swoln Firth, with sullen-sounding
roar.
Thro* the still night daih'd hoarse along the
shore:
An else was hnsh'd as Nature's closed e*e ;
The silent moon shone high o'er tow'r and tree :
The chilly frost, beneath the silver beam.
Crept, gently-crusting, e'er the glittering stream.
When, lo ! on either hand the llst'ning bard.
The clanging sough of whistling wings he
heard ;
Two dusky forms dart thro' the midnight air,
Swift aa the Ga \ drives on the wheeling hare ;
I
A noted tavern St the .^Mtf A^ end.
lite two sc«epUs.
The fos^irk, or ftleon.
Ane on th* AM Brig Us dry ikape tiprtii%
The ither flatten o'er the ririmppUrt .*
Our warlike Rhymer instantly descry'd
The Sprites that ownihitBrig§afAfr WMMib
(That Bards are aeeood-aighted is wmjJkM,
An' ken the lingo of the sp'ritnal folk ; •
Fays, Spunkies, Kelpies, a' they ean ezplaiB dwa^
And ev'n the vera deik they brawly ken thwii)
Atdd Brig appear'd of ancient Pieidsh raei^
The very wrinkles Gothic in his free :
He seem'd aa he wi' Time had waxatl'd laag*
Yet tonghly doure, he bade an uneo bang.
New Brig was buskit in a braw new eoat.
That he, at LcnCon^ frae ane Adama got ;
In*s hand five taper staves as smooth's a bend*
Wi* virls and whiriygigums at the head.
The Goth was stallung round with uaaom
search,
Spying the time-worn flaws in every arch ;
It chanc'd his new-come neebor took his c*c^
And e'en a vex'd an' angry heart had he !
Wi* thievelem sneer to see each modish mieot
He, down the water, gies him thus gaide*i»^
AULn BRIG.
I doubt na*, frien*, ye'll think ye're nae ahiip*
sliank,
Ance ye were streekit o'er icwt bank to bank!
But gin ye be a brig as auld aa me,
Tho* faith that day I doubt yell new ate ;
There'll l>r, if that day come, 1*11 wad a boddlib
Some fewer whigmalMries in your noddle.
NEW BXIC.
Auld Vandal, >-e but show your little mmmt
Just much about it wi* your scanty aenae ;
Will your poor narrow foot-path <^ a street.
Where tu'a wheel-barrows tremble when d^f
meet,
Your ruin'd formless bulk, o' stane an* lima.
Compare wi' bonnie Brigt o' modem time ?
There's men o* taste would tak' the Dtimh
etream,'^
Tho' they should cast the very sark and wenm.
Ere they would grate their feelings wi* the ritV
Of »ic an ugly Gothic hulk as you.
AULD BRIO.
Conceited gou'k ! puflTd up wi' windy pridt !
This roonie a year I've stood the flood an tidi |
An* tho* wi' crazy eild I'm sair forfiurn,
ril be e.tBrig wlien ye're a shapeless cairn !
As )'et ye little ken id>out the nutter.
But twa-three winters will inform ye better.
When heavy, dark, continued, a*-day rains,
Wi* deefiening delngeit o'erflow the plains ; •
When from tlic hills where hpriogs the bravi*
iug CotV,
Or stately Lugur^M mo«y fountains boil.
Or where the GreeniKk winds his moorliad
C(»ur«e,
Or hauntc<f Carpal | draws his feeble souree^
• A noted ford, Ju%t above the Auld Brig,
t The banks of Cirr/Mi ^'(S^ is ouc of the fewplHV
Is
BURNS' WORKS.
/
AfMt*d hf bliMt'iiag vlndt tad tpoCtiiig thowet.
In BMMiy « torrent down his Mft-bioo row« ;
VUle cruhing ieb, borne on the roeriog speat,
Swtepe dunt, an* milb, lui* brigs, a* to the
|r||te •
Aad fimn GUmbmek^ down to the Jiaittm hiy,f
Anld Ajpr ta juet one kngthcn*d tombliog lea ;
Then down ye'U burly deii nor ye never riiic !
And daah the gnmlie Jaupe up to the pouring
•kiei.
A Icaion ladly taaehing, to your coat.
That Architecture** noble art i» \mt !
MZW BUG.
Fine Arckiiecturt, trowth, I need* must aay*t
o*t!
The I>-4l be th^nkit that weVe tint the gate
o*t!
Gaunt, ghaitly, gaivt-alluring edificec.
Hanging with threat'ning jut, like precipices ;
0*«r-arching, mouldy, glouni-iunpiring covea,
Suppocting rooiii fiuitafctic, atony gruvi« ;
Windows aod doors, in naiueicvs tciilpture
drest,
l^th order, symmetry, or taste ubulu^l ;
Forms like tome brdlain »tatuur}-'ii drrani,
The cras'd creations uf mi^iiided whim ;
Forms might be worshipped oo the bfnded !
And still the second dread eomthatui In; free.
Their likeness is not found on earth, in air, or
Mansions that would divgrace the building ta:)to
Of any numon, reptile, bird, or beast ;
Fit only for a doited Monkish race,
Or frosty maids forsworn the dear embrace,
Or eui6 of later times, wha held the notion
That sullen gloom wan HteHioi; true devotion ;
Fancies that our guid Bru^h denies prot«>ctioD,
And soon msy the)- expiic, unblest with re-
surrection !
ALLH bkic.
O ye, my dear-reroembcrM ancient yeallngs,
Were ye but here to ^hire my wounded feelings !
Ye worthy ProveseMt an' mony a Bailie^
Wha in the paths o* righte<>ni»nc!tH did toil aye ;
Ye dainty I}eacoH$, an ye dunce Conrcnvrs,
To whom our modern* are but caubey-
rleanent ;
Ye godly Omncih wha hse blent this town ;
Ye godly Brrthren of the Macred gown,
Wha meekly gae your hurdit* to the tmiten ;
And (what would now be strange) ye yodJy
\Vriter$ :
A* ye douce folk Tve borne aboon the broo,
Were ye but here, what would ye say or do !
How would \uur spirits groan in deep vex^
ation.
To see each melancholy alteration ;
In Um Weit of Seotlsnd, where thoie fluicy.tcsrlnff b»>
tML known by ths name of OhaiMttt still oononue
ptrdnadously to inhsbiL
• Ths somas of the river Ayr.
t AflBaUlaitarPlMi«bo?ettMlH|ek#j.
And sgonisiug, cu^H! the time and place
When ye begat the base, degenerate noe !
Nae lan;rcr Rev'rend Men, their country*a
j>h ry.
In plaiu hruid Scots huld forth a plain braid
story !
Nae lojiger thrifty Citizens, an* douce.
Meet owre a pint, or in the Council house :
But staumrelt corky-hcsdcd, graceless Gentry,
The herryment and ruin of the country ;
Men, three ports made by tailors and by bar-
bers,
Wha waste your well-hain*d gear on d ' d
netr Briyt and Harbour* /
h'rw luiiG.
Now hau.I >oa there ! fur fisith ye*ve said
cuough,
And muekle niair thsn ye can niak to through,
As for your Piii>»thoud, I shall say but little,
Corbies and CUrtjjf are a shot right kittle :
But, under favour u* yuur langer beard,
Abuhe o* Magistrates might weel be spared :
To liken them to your uuld warld squad,
1 must needs say cuuiparikonn are odd.
In JLyft Wag-witB nue muir can hoe a handle
To mouth * a Citiscn,* a term o* Mraudal :
Noe ntuir the Council waddles down the
street
In sll the pomp uf ignorant conceit ;
Men wha grew wiite piig^iu* owre hops an*
raiHias,
Or gather*d lib*ral viewH in Bonds and Seisin*.
If haply Knowledge, on a random tramp.
Had shored them with a glimmer of hi» lamp,
And would to Common^wose, for once betrayed
them,
Plain dull Stui>idity stcpt kindly in to aid
them.
Vf\iat farther cli^hm3claver might been said.
What bloody wars, if Sprites had blood to
shed,
Xo man can tell ; but all before thnr sight,
A fdiry train n]t|>ear'd in order bright :
Adown the glittVing utream they featly danced :
Bright to the moon their various dresses
glanced :
They footed o'er the wat'ry glass so neat.
The infant ii*o hcarcc bent beneath their feet :
While arts of Min«trel«y among them rung.
And Houl-eniiobiing barids heroic ditties sung.
O had yi*Luuchlint* thairm-ioApiring sage.
Been there to hear thin hravenly band engage,
When thro' hi* dear ^tratktpeys they bore
with Highland rage ;
Or when they struck old Scotia*s melting airs,
The lover's raptured joys or bleeding cares ;
How would his HighUnd lug been nobl*r fir*d.
And even his matchless hand with finer touch
inapir'd !
• A wtU known pcrfonner of Seottldi murie on the
violin.
POEMS.
It
No guefiA could tell what iontrumeiit appetr'd,
But uU tlie soul of Muiiic*s telf was heard ;
H!irnioniou9i concert run^ ia every part.
While Mimplc melo<ly poiirM moving on the
hrart.
The Geniuii of the stream in front appears,
A venerable chief ailvanced in yeuni ;
His hoary head with water-lilies crown'd,
His manly 1^ with garter tani;le bound.
Next came the loveliest pair in all the ring.
Sweet Female Beauty hand in liand with
Spring ;
Tlien, crowa'd with flow'r^' hay, came Rural
Joy,
And Summer, with his fervid-fteaming eye :
AU-cheering Plenty, with her fluwii^ horn.
Led yellow Autumn wreath*d with nudiiing
com ;
Tlien Winter** time-bleached locks did hoary
fihow.
By Hospitality with cluudlon brow ;
Next foIlowM Courage with hiii martial stride,
From where the Feal wild-woody coverts hide ;
Benevolence, with mild beniernant air,
A female form, came from the tow*rs of Stair:
Learning and Worth in equal nieaKure« trode
From simple Citrine, their long-l(>v*d abode :
Last, white-rob*d Peace, crowu*d with a luizel
wreath.
To rustic Agriculture dul liequeith
The broken iron instruments of death :
At sight of whom our Sprites forgat their Lviid-
linn wrath.
THE ORDINATION.
For fcnse they little owe to Frugal Haav'n—
To please the Mob they hiile the liule fi%'n.
L
KiLMARKOcK Wshwtcrs, fidge an* claw.
An* pour your creoiihie nations ;
An* ye wha leather rax an* draw.
Of a* denominitiou'*.
Swith to the lAiiyh Kirk, ane an* a',
An* there tak up your stations ;
Then aff to Debbie* $ in a raw,
An* pour divine lihatiuiu
Fcr joy this day.
IT.
Curnt ('ommon-srn"c, that imp o* hell,
("am in wi' M.ii^-^ie Lauder;*
B;it () ai't liiadt' her v."!!,
An* R sair miset'd her ;
This day, M* takm the tUil.
An' he's the boy will blaud bcr !
• Alluding to a sn>l!inc ballad which was mada «
the admiaioo oftht latt HCfOVOd tBd worthy Mr. U
loth*
Kiife.
Ht'U clap 1 ihangtm m bar tail.
An* set the bairns to daud btr
Wi* dirt this day.
IIL
Alak haste an* turn king David owrt,
An* lilt wi* holy eUngor;
O* double verse come gie us four,
An* skirl op the Bugor :
This day the Kirk kicks up a stourc,
Nae mair the knavet shall wnqf htr^
For heres}* is in her powcr»
And gloriously she'll whanf hnr
Wi* pith this day.
IV.
Come let a projier text be read.
An' touch it aif wi* ▼igour, '
How graceless Ham * leugh at his Dad,
Which made Canaa/t a niger ;
Or Phineas f drovt the monkring blad%
Wi* whore-abhorring rigour ;
Or Ztpjxnrah, \ the scaaldiag jade^
Wan like a bluidy tiger
r the in that day.
V.
There, try his mettle oo the crecd»
An* bind him down wi* cantioi^
That Stipend is a carnal weed,
He taks but for the fashion ;
An* gie him o*er the flock to fted,
An* punish each tranegrearion ;
Especial, ram$ that croea the breed,
Gie them sufficient threahin*.
Spare them naa day.
VI.
Now auld Kilmarnock, cock thy tail.
An* toss thy horns fii* eaaty ;
Xae mair thou*lt rowt out-owre the dale
BtTause thy pasture*s scanty ;
For lapfu*s large o* goapd kail
Shall fill thy crib in plenty.
An* runiM o* j^racc, the pick and walib
No gi*en by way o* dainty.
But ilka day.
VIL
Nae mair by BabiVt ttrtamg we'll Wffj^
To think upon our ^ion ;
An* hing our fiddles up to sleep,
Like haby-clouts a-dryin* ;
Come, screw the pegs with tune/ii* cheeps
An* owre the thairma be tr)-in* ;
Oh, r.ire ! tu s»e our rlbucks whcep,
An* a like lanlMails flyin*
Fu* lt:st tl:;s day.
VIIL
Lanf: Pfitrcn'tpe, wi* rod o* aim,
llss sliured the Kirk*s undoin*.
• Genesis, ch. ix. ver. fft.
t Numbscs, dk asv. vst.l^
i Kxodui, eh. It, ?«• I9i
14
BURNS* WORKS.
Ai klrif JPImipiel, liir £nftini»
H« provw to iti rnia :
Oar Fitraii. iMniat bmii ! GUneuimp
Ht mw mbchwf ww brawin* ;
Aa* like ft fodlf cleet bftini,
Ht*i walM ttf oat ft tm$ aat»
Aa' iouid thti day.
HifvR-
IX.
llftnngne nae nair,
B«t tlnk yoor gab §ot ever ;
Or tiy the wicked town of Ayr,
For there they'll think yon clever ;
OTi aae reflectioa on yimr lear.
Ye may eommenee a »haver ;
Or to the NttUrtoM repair,
Aa* torn ft earper weaver
Aff hand thii day.
X.
•ad yon were jot t a match,
We never had de twa drone* ;
MM HonU did the Laiph Kirk watch,
Jnet like a winkin' baodrons :
Ab* tye he eateh'd the tither wretch.
To firy ilMBi in hia caodrom :
BOW hia honour maun detach,
Wi* ft* hia brimstone iquadronis
Fast, fut, this day.
XI.
I anld Orthodoxy** fae^
fte's iwingein' through the city ;
Hirk how the nine-tail*d cat she pkys !
I vow it*s unco pretty :
Then, Learning, wi* his Grceki«h face,
OniBts out some Latin ditty :
Aa* Common sense is gaun, she says,
To mak to JamU Seahie
Her plaint this day.
XIL
B«l diere*s Morality hinuel*,
Endvacing a* opinioos ;
BiWf how he giea the tither yell»
Between hu twa companions ;
8m^ how abe pads the skin an* fell,
Aa ant were peelin* onioiu !
How ther»--4hey*re padced aiT to hell,
An* banish'd our dominions.
Henceforth this day.
xni.
O happy day ! rejoice, rejoice !
Come bouse about tiie porter !
llonfi^'s demure decoys
8bau here noe mair find quarter s
11^ » R 9 are the boys,
That heresy can torture :
TlMf^ gie her on a rape a hoyae,
Aa cows her measure shorter
By the head aooie day*
XIV.
btnf Ao tiilMr motehkiA lii|
To every Ntw Lig^ * moUnr^s iodt
From this time forth, ConlbsioB :
If mair they deave us wi* their din,
Or Patronage intrusion,
We'll light a spunk, an* ev'ry akin,
Well rin them aff in fusion
Like oil, sooie day.
THE CALF.
TO THE REV. MR. — -
On hl« Text, Malacki, ch. Iv. vcr. f. " And thee
■hall go fixth, and grow up, like cai.tb8 of the stall.*
Right Sir ! j'our text 1*11 prove it true.
Though Heretics may laugh ;
For instance ; there** yoursel' just now,
God knows, an unco Calf/
An* should some Patron be so kind.
As ble« you wi' a kirk,
I dnubt nae, 5>ir, but then we*ll find,
Ye*re still as great a Stirk,
Diit, if the Lover*«i raptur*d hour
Shall evKr be %'our lot,
Forbid it, every heavenly Power,
You e*er should be a Stot I
Tho*, when some kind, connubial Dear,
Your but-and-ben adom«,
The like ban been that you may wear
A noble head of horng.
And in ^-our lug, most reverend James,
To hear you roar and rowte,
Few men o* seniie will doubt your claims
To rank amang the nowte,
m
And when ye* re number*d wi* the dead,
Belo^' a gra»y hillock, %
Wi* justice they may mark your head—
* Here lies a famous BuBoek /*
ADDRESS TO THE DEIL.
<tf g»*»*»<»<l#XWl<l#Ol#i»
O Prince ! O Chief of many thmned Power**,
That led th' embattled Seraphim to war.— Jfltf on.
«l>««W«*#Wi«»«Wi«Sl#*>#«MWtf*>«*MMIO
O TRou ! whatever title suit thee,
Auld Homie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie,
Wha in yon cavern grim an* sootie,
aos*d under hatches,
Spairges about the brunstane cootie.
To scand poor wretchea !
Hear me, auld Hangie, for a wee,
Ab* let poor damned bodies be ;
• JVins £4ffftf is a esnt phnw totheWastoT SeoU
latter those Trilijloiis <g™]'"',,^;y'*VP'* Taylor gf
I>0£MS.
Ih
Tm lurt tttoia* pleuure it cts gie,
£*eo to a dcil.
To ikelp an* acaud poor dogt like me,
Aa* hear ua aqueel !
Great ia thy pow*r, an* great thy £iiim ;
Far kend and noted ia thy name ;
An* tho' yon lowin* heugh's thy hame,
Thou traveb far ;
An* liuth ! thott** neither log nor lame,
Nor blate nor scaur.
Whylea, ranging like a roarin* lion,
For prey, a' holes and corners tryin* ;
Whyles on the strong-wing'd tempest flyln*,
Tirling the kirks ;
Whyles^ in the human bosom pryin*.
Unseen thou lurks.
I*Te heard my reverend Crannic.say,
In lanely glens you like to stray ;
Or where auld min*d castles gray,
Nod to the moon.
Ye fright the nightly iirand*rer*a way,
Wi* eldritch croon.
'When twilight did my Orawtie anmmon.
To say her prayers, douoe honest woman !
Aft yont the dyke she's heard you bummin* !
Wi* eerie drone ;
Or, mstlin*, thro* the boortries oomin*,
Wi* heavy groan.
At dreary, windy, winter night,
The stare shot down wi* sklentin' light,
Wi* you, mysel*, I gat a fright,
Ayont the lough ;
Ye, like Avsh-bush, stood in sight,
Wi* waving sough.
The cudgel in my nieve did shake,
Each bristrd hair stood like a stake.
When wi* an eldritch stour, quaick— quaick—
Amang the springs,
Awa ye sqaatter*d, like a drake.
On whistling wings.
Let Warlock* grim, an* wither*d hagf.
Tell how wi* you on ragweed nags.
They akim the muirs, and dizzy crags,
Wi* wicked Kpeed ;
And in kirk-yards renew their leagueo,
Owrc howkit deud.
Thence couutra wives, wi* toil au* paiu,
May plunge an* plunge the kirn in vain ;
For, oh ! the yellow treasure's U*en
By witching skill ;
An* dawtit, twal-pint Hawkie** gane
As yell*a the Bi\l
Thence mystie knots mak great abuse.
On young Guidmcn, fond, keen, an' cronie
When the bett wark-lume i* the house,
By ciatrip wit|
;
li instant made no worth a 1oo«f^
Just at the bit.
When thowef disaolva the tnawy boord^
An* float the jinglin* icy-boord,
Then WaUri^m hannt the faord,
Bf your directbn,
An* nighted Trav'Ilers are allured
To their destruction.
An* aft your moas-traTenmg S/mmkiu
Decoy the wight that late and drunk ta ;
The Ueeiin*, curst, mischievous monkeyi
Delude his ejres.
Till in aOBe miry skmgh he sunk is.
Ne'er mair to rii
When JlfatOMi* mystie word an* girip,
In storms an* tempests raise you up.
Some cock or cat your rage maun stop^
Or, strange to tall !
The youngest Brother ye wid whip
AffstranghttDhdl!
Lang sjme, in JEAh*s bomie ytrd.
When youthfu* lovers first wen pMr*d,
An* all the soul of lov« they shard.
The n^ptor'd hovr.
Sweet on the fragrant flowery awatid
In shady bower:
Then you, ye anld, snitf^lnwing dog !
Ye came to INmulise tnco^,
An* played on n«an a cursed brogue,
(Black be your fit*!)
An* gied the infant worid a shog,
*Maist ruined a*.
D*ye mind that day, when in a tnu^
Wi* reekit duds, and reestit gizi,
Ye did present )'our smoutie phis
*Mang better folk.
An* sklented on the man of Uz
Your npitefu* joke ?
An* how ye gat him i' your thrall,
An* brak him out u* house an* haU,
While i)cab« and blotches did him gaH,
Wi* bitter claw.
An* lowsed his ill tongued wicked Scawl,
Was want ava ?
But a* your doings to rehearse.
Your wily snares an* fcchtin* fierce,
Sin* tliat day Michael * did you piero,
Down to this time.
Wad ding a Lallan tongue, or Erse,
In prose or rhyme.
An* now, aukl Cloott, I ken ye're thiokia'
A certain Bardie's rantin*, drinkin*,
Some luckless hour will send him linkin*.
To your black pit ;
• Vide MUtoo^ book vi.
SaU fAith ! bell tarn A corner, jinkin*.
And cheat you yet.
Bat, fu% ye weel, auld Nlckie-lieM!
O wad ye tak a thought and men* ! ^
Ye ublina might — I dinna ken —
Still hae a stake^
Tm wae to think upon yon den,
Even for your sake !
BURXS' WORKS.
THX
DEATH AND DYING WORDS
OP
POOR MAILIE,
THE AUTHOR*S ONLY PI:T YOWE.
AN UNCO MOURNFU* TALE.
Aa MailUf an* her lamb< ihoijitlMT,
Were ae day nibbiini^ on t1:e trthei-,
Upon her cloot nhe roo^t a bitch.
An* owre ahe war»Ied in the (titcli ;
There, groaninfCt dying, ^hu did ]l<>,
W)^n Hughoc* he cauiv doytin by.
Wi* glowrin* een, and lifted hni/A,
Poor Hnghoe like a itatne %rux\ :
He law her dayi wf re near-hand orulL'il,
But, wae*8 my heart ! he could na nit^nd it !
He gaped wide, but naethin*^ »n.'ik !
At length poor Mailie vilence brak.
* O thon, whane lamentable f.iri*
Appear* to mourn my waefu' c-i!« !
My dying tmrdt attentive hear,
An* bear them to my ]\Ij*itrr diMr.
* Tell him, if e'er attain lie keep
Aa muckle gear as buy u ^h(^eI>,
O, bid him never tie them mair
Wi' wicked Btring!i o* hemp or hair !
But ca* them out to park or hill.
An* let them wander nt their will :
So min^M|flock incrc>i«e, an* grow
To i^^^Hfembs, an* pack^i u' woo' !
»majyM|flock
'mm
WM a master kin'.
An* aye was gnid to me an* mine :
An* now my dying chaige I gie him.
My helplets lamba I trust them wi* him.
* O bid him nave their harm*jp«« lives,
Frae doga, an* toda, an* butchers' knives !
Bnt gie them guid cow milk their lill.
Till they be fit to fend themsel' ;
An* tent them duly, e*en an* morn,
Wi* teata o* hay an* rips o* corn.
* An* may they never learn Uie gaeti
Of ithcr viie, wanrestfu* peti!
To alink thro* Blapj^ an* reave an* iteal.
At vtacks o* pea«e, or stocks o* kaiU
So may they, like their great forbears,
For muny a year come thro* the sheers :
So wivi>s u'ill gie them bits o* bread,
An' bilrn** gre»?t for them when they're dead.
* My p<Mn tiwp-Iamb^ my wn an* heir,
! O bill him broe«l him np wi* care !
I All* if he live to lie a !>oa?«t,
To pit «>nie bavins in \x\% hretat !
An* warn him, what I winna name.
To stay citntcnt wi' vom'm at hame :
An* no to rin an* wear his c]oot%
L:ke itli'.T inen-elcvj, gnii'eless, brutes.
* An* iici<t nr.y /.-'JfrtV, «illy t^iinc,
CJui*! krep tluv iV;ie .i u-tlu-r iffritig !
Ot may thn« ncVr fiiri::.itlier np
Wi' oiiy blastit m:<nrlan(l toop :
But nyc kwp mind to mmip an* mell
^\'i* s^heop o' credit like thysel' !
* An' now, my bairns, wi' my la*t breath,
1 lea'o niv blo^*«in' wi* you l).iith :
An' when you think upo' your mither.
Mind to l>e kin' to ano anither.
* Now, honest Hughoc^ dinna fail
To tell my master a' my talc ;
An* bid him burn this curwd tether.
An', for thy pain^ thou'bc get my blether.'
This said, poor Mailie tum'd her head,
And du«ed her een nniang the dead.
w^m
^f W W^^Wrt^. Mwlw*^^MMM#.
POOR MAILIEVS ELEGY.
Lament in rhyme, lament in prose,
^Vi* M.iut toars trickling down your nose;
Our bardie's fate w at a close,
I'ast a* remead ;
Th« l.ist sad cane-stano o* his woes ;
Poor Mailit*t dead !
It's no tlie lo«« o* warl's gear.
That could sae bitter draw the tear.
Or mak our bardie, dowie, wear
The mourning weed :
He's lost a friend and neebor dear,
In McdHe dead.
, Thro' a* the town she trotted by him ;
A lang half-mile she could descry him ;
AVi* kindly bleat, when she did spy him.
She ran wi* speed ;
A friend mair faithfu* ne'er cam nigh him.
Than Mailie dead.
I wat she was a sheep o* aenae,
An' could behare herael' wi* menae :
I'll •aT*t, the nerer brak a fenoe,
ThrQ* thicriili gmlt
POEMS.
l^r
Our bardie, lanely,' keeps the «penoo
Sin* Mailie'B dead.
Or, if he wandert up the howe,
Her living image in her yoire,
Comes bleating to him owre the knowe,
For bits o* bread ;
An* down the briny pearls rowe
For Mailie dead.
She wa« nae get o* moorland tipit,
"Wi* tawted ket, an* hairy hips :
For her forbears were brought in ships
Frae yont the Tweed !
A bonnier ^eesA ne*er cross'd the clips
Than Mailie dead.
"Wae worth the man wha first did shape
That vile, wanchancie thing — a rape !
It maks guid feUows girn an* gape,
Wi* chokin* dread ;
An* Robin*» bonnet wave wi* crape.
For Mailie dead.
O, a* ye bards on bonnie Doon !
An' wha on Ayr your chaunters tune !
Come, join the roelancholious croon
O* R6birC$ reed !
His heart will never get aboon
His Mailie dead«
TO J. S.
WlM*M*i«M*«VMMMrf^«M*r«
Friendship ! mjrsteriout cement of the soul !
Sweet'ner of life, and lolder of society !
I owe thee much ! Biair.
-, the sleest, pankie thief.
Dear S
That e'er attempted stealth or rief.
Ye surely hae «ome warlock-breef
Owre human hearts ;
For ne'er a bosom yet was prief
Against your arts.
For me, I Bwear by sun an* moon,
And every star that blinks abooo,
Ye'vc cost me twenty pair o*. shooo,
Just gaun to see you :
And every ither pair that's done,
Mair taen I'm wi* you.
That auld capricious carlin, Nature,
To roak amends for scrimpit stature.
She's turn'd you aff, a human creature
On her Jirst plan,
Aud in her freaksi, on every feature.
She's wrote, the Man,
Just now I've taen the fit o* rhyme.
My barmie noddle*s working prime.
My fancy yerkit up sublime
Wi* haaty fnmnMiD i
Hae ye A leinm moment^a tiipc"
To heir whalli Mttia' ?
Some rhyme t neebor*! name to laah ;
Some rhyme (vain thought ! ) for needfd* caah^
Some rhyme to court the conntra clash.
An' raise a din ;
For me an aim I never £uh ;
I rhyme for fun.
The star that rules my luckless lot.
Has fitted me the russet coat.
An' damned my fortune to the groat :
But in requit.
Has bless'd me wi' a random shot
O' countra wit.
This while my notion's taen a sklent,
To try my fete in guid black prent ;
But still the mair Fni that way bent,
Something cries * Hoolie (
I red you, honest man, tak tent !
Ye'll shaw your foDy.
* There's ither poets, much your betters.
Far seen in Greek, deep men o' letters,
Hae thought they had ensured their debtors*^
A' future ages ;
Now moths deform in shapeless tetters,
Their unknown pages.
Then fiireweel hopes o' laurel-bough%
To garland my poetic brows !
Henceforth I'll rove where busy ploughs
Are whistling dirang.
An* teach the lauely heights an* howes
My rustic sang.
ril wander on, with tentless heed
How never-halting moments speed.
Till fite shall snap the brittle thread ;
Then, all unknown,
I'll lay me with th' inglorious dead,
Forgot and gone !
But why o* death begin a tale ?
Just now we're living, sound an' hale,
Then top and maintop crowd the sail.
Heave eare o'er side
And large, before enjoyment's gale.
Let's tak' the tide.
This life, sae far's I understand.
Is a' enchanted fairy land.
Where pleasure is Uie magic wand.
That, wieMed right,
Maks hours like minutes, hand, in hand.
Dance by fu' light.
The magic-wand then let us wield ;
For ance that five-an'-forty's speel'd.
See crazy, weary, joyless eild,
Wi* wrinkled face.
Comes hostin', hirplin', owre the field,
Wi' crcepin' pace.
S9
BURNS* WOHES.
Whn aaet S/&*« iqf ttiiri BMr ^ gloiiBb*,
Thai frmml racaat
Ab* fiuvwcel dMT
An'ndal
The joy of jojri !
O Life ! ham pletnat in Uiy moraing^
Young Fancy*! rayi the kiili adornuig !
CokUptuiing Ciution'a lenon wwrning,
We friak away,
Like acliooUboyay at the expected warnings
To joy and play.
We wander there, we wander here^
We eye the roae upcrn the brier,
Uamindfiil that the thorn ta near,
Amang the leavei :
And though the pony wonnd appear.
Short while it grierea.
Some, lucky, find a flowery apat,
Vor which they nerer toiled nor awat.
They drink the aweet and eat the fiu.
But care or pain ;
And haply eye the barren hut
With high diadain.
WitK ateady aim, aome Fortune chale ;
Keen hope does every ainew brace :
Thro' fiuJr, thro* fiwl, they urge the raoe^
Anaeiae the prey:
Then cannier in some cosie place.
They doae the (2ay.
An* others, like your humble aenran*.
Poor wighta ! nae rules nor roads obaenrin' ;
To right or left, eternal swenrin*.
They aig-aag on ;
Till curat wi* age, obscure an* atarrin'.
They aften groan.
Alas ! what bitter toil an* straining—
But truce with peerish poor complaining !
la Fortune's fickle JLtma waning ?
E'en kt h*r gang !
Beneath what light she has remaining,
Let*s sing our aang.
My pen I here fling to the door,
And kneel, ' Ye pow*rs !* and warm implore
* Tho' I should wander terra o'er.
In all her climeib
Grant me but this, I ask no more.
Aye rowth o* rhymeat
' Gie dreeping roasts to countra lairdsy
Tin icicles hing frae their beards :
Oie fine braw daes to fine life-guarda,
An* maids of honour }
An* yill an* whisky gie to cairds,
Until they aoonner.
' A title, Dtmptter merits it ;
A|«iitr|ieto WmtFiUi
wwliii to MOM U-yfK^4 fk,
In eent par eaal
Bat gbi Bt naly it«liag wit^
An Fbi coBttBfc
< While ye an pleated ta keep me hala^
m ait down o*er my acanty mealy
Ba't iwrfer ftroae or wmdin kaif,
Wi* eheerfn' Amo,
Aa kng'a the moaea dinna fiul
To aay the greee.*
An anziooB e*e I nerer throwa
Bdiint my lug, or by my noae ;
I jook beneath miafivtnne's blows.
As weel'a I may :
Sworn foe to aorrow, care, an' praaa^
I rhyme away.
O ye donee kSkf that live by role^
OraTe, tiddesa-bkwded, calm and oool,
Compar'd wi* yoo— O fixd ! fixd ! fool !
How mneh unlike !
Yoor hearts are jnst a atanding pool.
Your liTea, a dyke !
' Nae hair-brain*d sentimental tranaa
In yenr un]etter*d nanwleas fiuxa ;
In arioso trills and gracea
Ye never atray,
Bat ^ToeuttMO^ aolemn basses
Ye hum away.
Ye are sae praoe, nae doubt ye*re vise,
Nae iierly tho* ye do deapiae
The haimm seaimm, ram-atam boya,
The rattlin* squad :
I see you upward caat your eyea — ,
— Ye ken the road«—
Whilst I— but I ahall hand me there —
Wi* you m scarce gang ony w*«rs—
Then, JamU, I shall aay nae mair,
But quat my aaag.
Content wi* yon to mak a pair,
Where er I gang.
A DREAM.
m^immm^mtimm^mm^mmmmm
Thoughts, voids, and deeds, the statute
reasoot
But sutdy drMHU iperene*er indteCed
bUonea wMh
m000im0m0mmt
ron rcMllngp In the pubUe papers, the Lawrtaif»Oit»
with the other pvade of June 4, I7M, the aMhor
wsfl no sooner dropt asleep, than he lonaninod hinu
•eirtramported to the bfrth-day lercat aadte Us
dreaming fiuiqr* made the foUowing ^diWrcsfcl
GuxD-MonxiN* to your Majetty !
May hearen augment your blisses^
On erery new hirth'dajf ve see,
A humble poet wishes !
My bardahip iiere, at your kne^
On no • da;r M this iei
tOtUB.
10
li ittft tft ineokdi M|k to M^
8v int Ikk dbgr.
IL
I «e ys'i* mmpiiBWrtii fhna^
Bjr mooy a lord aa* M]r»
• God Mnre the Kuv !* *■ a cndBM
That's vneo aaij aaid aja ;
Themte, too» a Tcnal gaas,
In' ihyoMO wtel tora'd an* rmfy.
Wad gar yoa trow yv na*cr do wraag^
Bat aja uaerriaf iteadiry
Onaieadaj.
m.
Forma! bdbra a flMiiareh*t fiMo^
£▼*« Iftarv I wiaaa flatter ;
For MiUiar aeiHioiiy poat» nor plaof^
Aai I four haaafale debtor:
So noa icflcctMMi oo jfovr jproeCy
Yo«r kiofdiip to beepiftter;
Thcra'e aaonie waar ben o* the rao^
An* aDdiM ana been better
Than jon this day*
IV.
*TSs very tme^ my oov'reign king,
ily sJoU mar we^ba doabted :
Bat fiKts are cAieb niat winna ding.
An* dowaa be diipated :
Tear royal nrsty beneath yoor wing^
le e*en right reft an' doatod,
Ab^ aov the third part o' the string.
An' Icsiy oriU gang aboat it
Than did ae day.
V.
Far be't firae me that I aspire
To blame yoor IcgMbtioo,
Or sBy» fs wisdom want, or fir^
Ta nue diia mighty nation !
Bat, frith! I mneUa doobt, my Sirtf
Ye Ye trwlBd ministration
To chaps, wha, in a bam or byre^
Wad better liU*d their station
Than courts yon day.
VL
An* now yc've gien aoM JfMimn peace,
Hit broken dhtns to plaister ;
Tonr sair tawtion does her fleox,
Tin she has scarce a teeter;
For me^ thank God, my Nfii's a iiasf^
Nae hargain wearing iMter,
Or, fidth! I fear, that wi* the geese^
I shortiy boost to Mstore
r the craft some dajr.
VIL
Fm no mistroBtiflV Wmi* PiU^
When taics he enlaiges,
CAn* WUt§ a tme gaid fUlow*s geCr
A noma not enry spaiigcs).
That ha intsndi to pay yoor debt|
An* k««n a* ]roar cbti|fi|
BaL findmh ! kl wmmtbm M
* a_ * 4 B_ o a^
Abffidga yoar aaaam aaram
Aa* baato thk dm&
Adiea,anrXd9*.
•«k
VIIL
/
Aa' may ye las Owraptioals
Aa'gieherfcrdiMctma!
Bot sinee Vm here. Ill no mglBe^
la loyal, trae afiectiooy
To pay yoar Qwsra, with dao
liy Mty an' sal^JselsM
Thia gieat bfraM^f*
IX.
Va^Mtjt^t Moti JBxtdkmt f
While noblss strire to please ye^
Win yo accept a compJiment
A etmple poet gies yo?
Thae bonnie baimdme^ Hesr*n haa kBl»
Stitt higher may tliqr heme ye^
In UiH, tin frte soma day ia seni^
For ever to idease ye
riae care out ^Bjm
X.
For yoOy yoang potentate o Waki^
I tril yoar Ulghmtn fiuihr,
Doom Pleasare'b stream, wi^ swelEng siiK
Vm tanM yo're driTing rarely ;
Bot some day yo may gnaw yoar aaiK
An' cone yoar folly sairiy.
That e'er ye brak Diona'a pale%
Or rattled dke wi' CktvUM,
By aight or day.
XL
Yet aft a ragged covte's been known
To msk a noble oteer .*
80, ye may doocelT All a throne^
For a* their dish-mapdavcr :
There, him * at Agimiemart wha shoa^
Few better were or araver %
An* yet wi* fanny qaeer Sir JU8,f
Hearaaan uneoshafer
For moniea day
xn.
For yoo, right rev tend Osaobwf^
Naue seta the !■■<■ tiwai awaster,
Altho* a ribbaa at yoar log
Wad been a drew completer :
Aa ye disoam yon panghty dog
That bears the keys of Peter,
Then, swith! an' got a wifi to hag^
Or, trouth, ye*n etain tho adtia
Some hMklom dqfd
xm.
Yoong royal Tarry JBnd^ I learay
Ye*ve ktdy come athwart htf ;
• King Henry T,
BURN'S* WOKfcS.
A gtunoufl paHt^^ vtnfi M tiern,
Werl ri}^*d for Vvuu' btrtrr I
Bot fint himip mit, thtt ilw*!! ducern
Your hfmeoeal cluirter,
Thra liMve abourd jronr gntpple airn.
An* lorjpi apo* her qnarfer, ^
Cmim full due daj.
XIV.
Te, lastly, bonaw bkMMMm a\
Ye n>yal lames dainty*
Heav*ii mak yoa Kuid as wvd as braw,
An* gM yuu lads a-plenty :
But sDcvr nae Britiak boffB awa*,
For kings are unco scant aye ;
An* German grntles are but «ina\
Tbey*re better jiist than wamiaye
On onie day.
XV.
Qod blew yoa a* ! eonsider now,
Ye*re unco muckh danlet ;
Bat, ere the er>iirse o* lilb be thro*.
It msy be bitter santet (
An* I hue seeii their tnggh fon.
That %-et hoe tarroVt at it ;
Bat or the dap was dooe^ I troiTy
The laggen they hae olautet
Ftt* dean that day.
THE VISION.
BUAN riiurt.f
Tkk sun had chieed the winter day,
The curlers qoat their roaring pky.
An' hunger*d maukin ta*en her wav
To kail-yards %reen,
While CuthlflH aiaws ilk step betray
Whaie she has been.
The thre»>hcr*8 wmry JUmpin^rM
Tlie ke-lang day had tired me :
And. whan the day had elosed his e*e,
Far i' the rat,
Ben i* the ipeme*, right pensifdiey
Igaed to rest.
There, lanely, by the ingle-cheek,
I aat and ey'd tha sptwiug rotk,
That hird wi' hoi pt nirnling smeek,
The aaU day biggin' ;
An' heard the rettei rattona aqoeak
Aboat the riggin'.
All in ihia atttitk Mkty dim^
I backward mosM on WMlid tiin%
How I had tpanft By yoothfh* prime,
An* done nae-thing.
• Alluding to tfai wm^mym anoaat of a cntaln
^J|M% a tsan orCMaa^flNr thadMteiBtdiTUam
But stringin* blethers up in niyflU
For foula to sing.
If^ I to guid advice hot harkit,
I might, by this, hae led a market*
Or strutted in a bank and darliit
My eakh aeeonot :
While here^ half-mad, half-fed, half-sarkit,
Is a* th' amount.
I started, muttering, blockhead ! coof !
And hedv*d on high uiy waukit kio^
To swear by a* yon starry roof.
Or some rash aith.
That I, hcncefortli, would be rkyme-proof
Tai my last breath^
When click ! the string the sneck did draw }
An* jee ! the door gaad to tho wa* ;
An* by my ingle^knre I aaw.
Now blecnn bright*
A tight outlandish Hizxie bmw,
GHOe fiiU in sight.
Ye need na doubt, I held my whbht
The in&nt aith half-form'd was crush't ;
I gk>wr*d as eerie*s I'd been dusht
In some wiM glen ;
When sweet, lika owdeat worth, she bhiah't,
And ileppca ban.
Green, slender, latMad koOi^-b^mgkaf
Were twisted graoelii* round her brcMra ;
I took her for aome SoMiah Mmm^
By that same token ;
An* come to atop those reckless vows^
Wonhl soon been broken.
A < hair-brain*d, santiniBtal tnee*
Was strongly marked in her free;
A wildly-witty, rustie grKe
Shorn foil upon her ;
Her eye, ev'n tum*d on empty spaca^
BeaBi*d haan with hoaonr
Down flow'd her robob a tartan sheen.
Till half a leg was scrimply seen ;
And such a leg ! my boonie Jean
Oooldonly
Sae straught, sae taper, tight, and
Vt
ht
Her maniU Uigt, of graaniah hot,
My garing wonder chiemr dfvw ;
Deep Ug& and Madsi, boU-aiafling, Upwr
AhMtra grand;
And teem'd tomy ■Btoaiah*d view,
A treff Anovn land.
Here, nTers in tfaa sen wore kil t
There^ mountains to the akieft mn
Here» tumbliiig biUowa mark'd iha
WitfitBrgi]
Thm^ diitint iImim Art*a loA^
POEMS.
II
Here Dcnm pourM Aovrn his tar-fetcVd floods ;
There, well-fed Intine statclv thuds :
Auld hermit Ai^r staw thro* h:;* woimIs,
On to the shore ;
And many a lesser torrent scuds,
With sc'cining roar.
Low, in a sandy valley spread,
An ancient borough reurM her head ;
Still, as in Scottish story read,
She hnasts a race.
To every nohler virtue hrcd,
And jiolish'd grace.
By stately towV or palare fair,
Or ruins pendent in the air,
Bold stems of heroes, here and there,
1 could discern ;
Some seem'd to mu««, some ncenrd to dare,
* With f;;ature stern.
My heart did glowing transport feel.
To see a race * heroic wheel.
And brandish round the deep-ily'd steel
In stunlv blows ;
While back-recoiling seem'd to reel
Their suthrun fin-s.
His Country's SAvxouii.f mark him well I
Bold Richardton* \ heroic swell ;
The chief on Sark § who gloriuu^i fell,
in high command ;
And he whom ruthless futes expel
His native land.
There, where a sceptred Plcthh sliade I|
Stalk'd round his axhes lowly laid,
I mark'd a martial race pourtray'd
la colours i»trong ;
Bold, soldicr-featurM, undixmuyM
They strode along.
Thro* many a wild, romantic grove,^
Near many a hermit-fan«;y'd cove,
(Fit haunts for friendship or for love
In musing mood),
An cigtd Judge^ I saw him ruvc.
Dispensing good.
With deep-struck reverential awe,**
The learned tirt and son I naw,
To Nature's God and Nature*!!; law
Thev jjave
tl
Kir iore
• The Wallaces. \ William Wallico.
X Adam Wallace, of Richanltoii, itxiMii tu the un-
mortal preserver of Scottish indciiciidciiue.
I Wallace, Laird of Craigic, wn«>wa.s»ecrn«l iniHtin-
nuind, under DougUx Karl of Orinowd, at the t'<inii>ii<(
battle on the banks of Sark. foii^hc annn IHH. Tliat
glorious victory was prlnci|ialiy owing to thf judiciouK
conduct and intrepid valour of the callant Laird of
Craigie. who died of his wouDdR after the action.
II Cotius, King of the Picts. fh>m whom the diotrict
of Kyle is laid to take its name, lies burled, as tradi-
tioo says, near the ftmily-aeat of Um Montt^omerics of
Coilsfleld. where his burial-place is still sliuwn.
^ Barskimming, the ssat ot the late Lord Justice.
Clerk.
•• Catrine, the scat of the late Doctor, and present
PiofCMor Stewart.
This, ail its source aud end io draw,
That| to adore.
BrydoiCi brave ward • I well could spy,
Beneath old 6'cof«a'«-«miIing eye j
Who call'd on Fame, low standing by»
To hand him on.
Where many a patriot-name on high,
And hero ahone.
D'JAN SECOND.
With musing-^eep, astonish *d stare,
I view'd the heav'niy-seeming /air ;
A whisp'ring throb did witness bear.
Of kindred sweet.
When with an elder sister's air
She did me greet.
* All hail ! my own inspired bard I
In mc thy native muse regard ;
Nor longer mourn thy fate is hard,
Thus poorly low,
I come to give thee such reward
As we bestow.
* Know, the great peniug of this land
Ilan many a light, aerial band,
Who, all beneath his high command.
Harmoniously,
As arts or arms they under*tind,
Tlieir labours ply.
* Tiiey Scotia's race among them share ;
iSomc tire the ttoldier on to dare ;
Some rouite the patriot up to hare
Corruption's heart ;
Some teach the hard, a darling care,
The tuneful art.
* '^lon^r swellinT floods of recking gore,
They, anient, kin«llii>g spirits pour ;
Or, 'mid tiie vcual senate's roar.
They, sightleas, stand,
To mend the honest patriot-lore.
And grace the hand.
* And when the hard, or hoary sage,
Chfirm vr instruet the future ugj,
They hind tJie wild poetic rage
III enei-gy.
Or point the inconclusive page
I'ull on the eve.
m
* Hence Ivflarton, the h'ave aud young;
Heticc JJemjmttr^s zeal-in'>pireil ton"ue •
Ilcuec sweet hoi'muuious lieattlc >UMg
His ••AIin.>trcl lays;'*
Or tore, with noble ardour t<tung.
The sceptic 4 bays.
* To Imvcr orders arc assign'd
The humbler ranks of human-kind.
* Cokmd FuUartoo.
BURNS* WORKS.
At
AH
Rard, the Wring Hind,
The ArtiMn;
M Tuions they're incli&'d.
The Yarknis nun.
* When yeOov wavet the heavy gniOt
The threet'niiig ftorm tome ttrcmgly rein ;
Some tcaeh to neliormte the phiii»
With tillage duU ;
And aome iattrnct the ahepherd-traiii, '
BUthe o*er the hilL
* Some hint the lorer'a harmleM wile ;
Some grace the maiden's artlew amile ;
Some aoothe the Ub*rer*s weary toil.
For humble gain*,
And make hb cottage aceues beguile
His cares and pains.
' Some bounded to a district-space^
Explore at Urge man** in£int race,
To mark the emfaryotic trace
Of rustic Bard ;
And careful note each op'ning grace,
A guide and guard.
* 0/ these am I — Coiln my name ;
And tills district as mine I cl^m,
Where once the Campbdls, chie& of fume,
Held ruling pow*r :
I mark'd thy embryo tuneful flame.
Thy natal hour.
< With future hope, I oft would gaze,
Food on thy little early ways.
Thy mdely candl'd, chiming phrase.
In uncouth rhymes,
Fired at the aimple^ artless bys
Of other times.
< I saw thee seek the aoonding shore.
Delighted with the dadiing roar ;
Or when the north hia Htm store
Drove thro* the sky,
I saw grim Nature's visage hoar
Stmck thy young eye.
* Or when the deep-green mantled earth
Warm cherish*d ev*ry flow'ret's birth,
Aad joy and mnaic pooring forth
la ev*ry groves
I saw thee eye the general mirth
With boondlasB love;
* When ripen*d fielda, and aiore
Call'd forth the reaper*a matling noise^
I aaw thee leave their ev'ning joys.
And kmely stalk,
To vent thy bosom'a swdling riae
In penaive waDc
* When ywthfnl love^ warm-Uoahiqg, itnuig,
Kaan-ahivering ahot diy nervta akmg»
Thoia aeeaiti^ gratalnl to thy tongue,
Tk* adond /roMSb
I taught thee how t<i paur in song.
To lootlte thy flame.
< I saw thy pulse's maddening play.
Wild send thee Pleasure's devioua way,
Bfisled by Fancy's meteor ray.
By Passion driven ;
But yet the Vffht that led astray
Was li^ tnm heaven.
* I taught thy mannem-painting strains.
The loves, the \rays of ftirople swaina
Till now, o'er all my wide domains
Thy hme extends ;
And some, the pride of Coila*s plains.
Become thy friendSi
< TIiou cAnst not learn, nor can I show.
To paint with Thomsom*s landscape glow ;
Or wake the bosom-melting throe.
With Sktmsiom's art ;
Or pour, with Grojr* the moving flow
Warm on the heart.
< Vet all beneath th' unrivaird
The lowly dairy sweetly blows :
Tho' large the forest's monarch throws
His army shade.
Yet green the juicy hawthorn grows,
Adown the glade.
< Then never mnrmnr nor repine ;
Strive in thy humUe sphere to shine ;
And trust me» not PoUmI^s mine.
Nor king's regard,
Can give a bliss o'ermatching thine,
K rustic Bard*
' To give my eonnsds all in oo^
Thy toMfnl flame atill careful fiui ;
Preserve Uu dignity o/Mmu,
With aool craet ;
And trust the Uuimrsai plan
WiUaUpnUeet.
* And wear thou <A«t/...ahe aolenn
And boond the IToffjr ronnd my head ;
The polish'd leaves, and berries red.
Did matling j^ ;
And, like A paasing thoogiit, ahe fled
la light away.
ADDRESS TO THE UNCO. QUID
oaxBi
RIGIDLY RIGHTEOUS.
msodms make a rali^
c
PaBMS.
TiMel
MqrhM
FormdaB
•om Quit iPMr «M dIgM
vytatoTadriBt
Mlo»-emtiimiliclit
fltiorddBB^
Mi
O Tx wba are nt gsid yminel,
Sae pioos an* ne holy,
Ye*ire nought to do but mark and tell
Your nedNiur** fiiutt and folly !
Whaae life ia like a wecl gaun millf
Sapply*d wL' store o* water.
The heapit happer** ebbing still.
And atill the clap plays clatter.
U.
Hear me, ye venerable core,
Am eouniel for poor mortaK
That frequent pass douoe Wisdom*a door
For glaikit FoUy*a portak ;
I, for their thoughtlen, cardcM eakei^
Would here propone defenceti
Their donsie tricks, their black mirtakci,
Their foilings and mischances.
IIL
Ye see your state wi* theirs compared,
An* shudder at the niflfer,
But cast a moment's feir regard.
What maka the mighty difier f
Discount what scant occasion gave,
That purity ye pride in.
An' (what's aft mair than a* the live)
Yonr better art o* hiding.
IV.
Think, when your castigated pnbe
Gies now and then a wallop.
What ragings must his veins eoovulse,
That still eternal gallop :
m^* wind and tide fktr i* yoor tail.
Right on ye send yonr sea-way ;
But in the teeth o* baith to aai]»
It maka an unco leo-way.
y.
See social life and glee att down.
All joyous and unthinking.
Till, quite transmogrified, ^ey*ra grown
Debauchery and drinking :
O would they stay to ealenlate
Th* eternal conseqoenoea ;
Or your more dreaded hell to stale,
Damaation of eciMBMa I
VI.
Ye high, exalted, virtuous dames,
Ty*d up in godly laces.
Before ye gie poor/ra«lf|r name^
Suppose a change o* cases ;
A dear lov'd lad, convenienoe snug,
A treacherooa inclination
But, let me whisper i* yoor hig,
Yf 're aiUiai dm temptitioii.
vn.
Th» gently tein yonr brodMr Ban^
Still geate mtae woman ;
Tim* they mar gang a kennin wnmg.
To step aside k hnnian i
One point mnak atiU bt grady daik»
The moving wAf they do it ;
And jttrt IB lamely ean ye raariEf
How fer perbi^ they me it.
vra.
Who made ibe heart, "tia A iknM
Decidedly can try ni^
He knows each chocd — ita variona totm,
Each ipring — ita varidoa bias :
Then at the balance let*a be mole^
We never can adjust it;
What's dome we partly may eonqpnte^
Bat know not what*s remaitd.
TAM SAMSON'S* ELEGY.
An honest man's the noblest woik of God^^Apfc
theDeil!
t thrawn hia heel ?
Has auld K
Or great M'
Or R ■ \ again grown weal
To preach an' read f
* Na, waur than a* !* cries ilka ehiel,
« rnmSsmaon'adandl
K — >- lang may grant an' gnme^
An* sigh, an' sab, an* greet her lane^
An* deed her bairna, man, wife^ md nrwni
In mourning weed ;
To death, she*s dearly paid the kane^
Tarn Samson'a dead
The brethren of the mystie ievtl.
May hing their head ia woefu' bevel.
While by their nose the teara will revil^
Likeony bead!
Death'a gien the lodge an unco devel.
Tarn Sameon'a dead !
When winter mufllea op his dotkp
And binds the mire like a rods ;
When to the lochs the cnrlen lock,
Wi* gleeeome speed ;
Wha win they station at the eaek 9
Tam Samson'a dead !
He waa the king o' a' the core.
To guard, or draw, or wick a bora.
• When thb worthy old y'"'tyi wsnt ont hat
muirfowl season, he suppossa it ma to hsu hi Osstaafla
phnse, 'thehstof his fisldsr wd cntesssdaaw-
dant wish to die and he buried ia the auiin. Oa lUi
hint tlMMttior composed Ms ^y and epttsph.
t A esftaia prsadisr, a Beet fhvomlte with ttw w^
lion. nd«theOniination,8C«uaIL
^ AaoUMrnsMher, an equal tevoorits with the fnr*
whowmatdiutiniaaiJhii. For him lee aim tfM Ol.
S4
BURNS' WORKS.
Or ap tlie rink, like JcAm rotr,
In time o* need ;
Bat now \m lagi on de«th'e Ao^-motk,
Tarn StmeoB*! doid !
Now safe the stately aawmont sail,
jbid trouts bidropp'd wi* erimton hail.
And eels weel kenn'd ibr sodple tally
And ftot lor greed,
Since dark in death's >bA-eritel we wail,
Tam Samson dead !
Bejoioe, ye birring paitrieks a* ;
Te oootie moorcocks, eroosely craw ;
Ye ""■w^**, cock your fbd fti* braw,
Withonten diead i
Your mortal 6e is now awa*,
Tam Samson's dead •
That waefii* mom be erer moom'd.
Saw him in ahootin' graith adom*d,
While pointera ronnd impatient bom'd,
Free couples freed !
Bsly odi ! he gaed and ne'er retum'd !
Tam Samson's dead !
In vain anld age his body batten ;
Tm vain the gout his ancles fetters ;
&i vain the boms came down like waters,
An acre braid !
Vow ffv'ry anld wiftb greetin', clatters,
Tam Samaon's dead ! .
OwvB BMMiy A weary hag he limpit,
An' aye the tither shot he thumpit,
Till oowiid death behind him jumpit^
Wi* deadly feide ;
VoiW he preolaims wi* tout o' trumpet,
Tam Samson's dead !
Whan at his heart he felt the dagger,
He reel'd his wonted bottle-swagger,
Bat yet he drew the mortal trifi^r
Wi* weel-aim'd heed ;
* L dt §cm !' he ery'd, an* owre did stagger ;
Tam Samson's dead I
Bk hoiry hsnter moom'd a brither ;
Bk T'«'^"P'* yoath bemoan'd a &ther ;
Yon anld grey stane, am«ng the heather,
Blarks out his head.
Where BumM has wrote, in rhyming blether,
Tam Samson*$ dead I
There low he lies, in lasting rest :
Perhaps upon his mould*ring breast
Some spitefu' muirfowl bigs her nest.
To hatch an* breed ;
Alas ! nae mair he'll them molest !
Tam Samaon's dead !
When August wmds the heather wave,
And sportsmen wander by yon grave.
Three voUeya let kia roem'ry crave
O' ]poathcr an* lead.
Till Echo answer frae her cave,
Tam Samsuo's dead !
Heav'n rest his saul, whare'er be be !
Is th' wish o* raony mae than nu* :
He had twa fauts, or may he thrive,
Yet what rcincad ?
Ae aodal, honest man, want wc :
Tam Samson's dead !
THE EPITAPH.
Tam Samson's weeUwom clay here lies,
Ye canting sealots, spare him !
If honest worth in heaven rise,
Ye'll mend or ye won near him.
PER CONTRA.
Go, Fame, and canter like a filly
Thro' a' the streets an* neuks o' Killie,'
Tell every social, honest billie.
To cease his gi'ievin'.
For yet onskaith'd by death's gleg gullie,
Tam Sammma Uvin\
HALLOWEEN, t
[Thb following poem will, by many readen, be wen
enough understood ; but for the sake of tbow who
are unsoquahited with the mannenand traditions of
the country where the scene U cast, notes are added,
to give some account of the principal channs and
speUs of that night, so big with prophecy to the pea-
santry in the West of Scotland. The paufon of pry-
ing into fUturlty makes a striking part of the history
of human natiire in its rude state, in all ages and
nations: and it may be some entertainment to a
philosqphio mind, if any such should honour the
author with a perusal, to see the remains of it a
mong the more unenlightened in our own.]
Yes I let the ridi deride, the proud disdain.
The dmple pleasures of the lowly train ;
To me more dear, congenial to my heart.
One natlTe charm, than all the gloss of art
GoUUmiih.
p*m»00m^m
I.
UroK that night, when faitiea light,
On Cassilis Downang ^ dance.
Or owre the lays, in aplendid blase.
On sprightly coursers )irance ;
Or for Colean the route iu ta'eu,
Beneath the moon's pale lieaini !
• Killie is a phrsM the country folks someUnm u>.e
for KilinamocK.
t is thoiipht to be a night when witches. deviU, and
other mischief-making beings, arc all abntad on their
baneful midnlpht crrandu; pArticiilarly those ncrial
pei)plc, the Fairies, arc said on tliat night to hoU a
grand annivcrury.
t Certain little romantic, rookr, grem hills, in the
neighbourhood of Uw ancient seat of the Earls of C
sUis.
FOBMS.
tf
There, up tbe eove,^ to itrty an* rove
Anung the rocki and fttreamt,
To sport that night
II.
Amang the bonnie winding banks
Where 2>ooi» rins, wimplin', clear,
Where Baucsf ance rul'd the martial ranks,
An' shook his Car rick spear,
Some merry, friendly, couuua folks,
Together did convene,
To burn their nits, an* poit their stocks,
An* baud their Hullowttn
Fu* bliilio chat night,
UI.
The lasses feat, an* cleanly neat,
Mair braw than when their fine ;
Their faces blithe, fu* sweetly kythe,
Hearts leal, an* warm, au' kin' :
The lads sae trig, wi' wuuer-lMibii,
Weel knotted on their gartvn,
6om« unco blate, an* bomu wi* ga'>!t|
Gar lasses' hearts gang startin*
SVhyles fa»t at night
IV.
Then first and foremost, thro' the kail,
Their stoclu \ maun a' be sought ance ;
They steek their een, an* graip an* wale,
For muckle anes and straught anea.
Poor hav'rel Will fvll aff the dnft.
An' wandcr'd thro* the botr-kailf
An' pou't, for want o* better shift,
A runt was like a sow-tail,
Sae bow't that night.
V.
7*hen, straught or crooked, yird or nane,
They roar an* cr)' a* throu'ther ;
The vera wee things, todlin*, rin
Wi* stocks out-owre their shouther ;
An* gif the CMgtoc*9 sweet or sour,
Wi* joctelegs they taste them ;
Syne coaiely, aboon the door,
Wi* cannie eare, they*ve plac*d them
To lie that night.
* A noted cavern near Colean-houae, called The
Cove of Colesn ; whldi, as Cassllis Downans, is fsmed
in oountiy story for being a Csvourite haunt for fsiries.
t The famotis Dunily St that name, the ancestors of
Rosaar, the great deliverer of his oountry« were Earls
of Carrick.
t Ihe fint egfemooy of Halkmeen, is palUng eaeh
a stock, or plant of kail They roust go out, hind in
band, with eyes shut, and pull the flrst thev meet
with 1 Its betog big or little, straight, or crooked, i«
prophetic of the sixe and shape of the griind object of
all their speUs— the husband or wife. If any ytrrf, or
earth, stkx to the root, that is toeher, or fortune ; and
the taste of the ew^oc, thays the heart of the stem, is
Indicative of the natural temper and dii|ioiitioo. —
Lastly, the stems, or, to give them tlieir ordinary ap-
BtUaoon, the runU, are placed somewhere at»ve the
Mid of the door { and the Christian names of the peo.
nU whom dunee tarings into the house, art, aoeording
to thi priority of pkeuf tiM nNi<f« tiM names in ques-
The laaMi ataw frae *mang them a*
To pou their atottt o* cam ; *
But Rab slips out, and jinks about,
Behint the mudde thorn :
He grippet Nelly bard an* fi»t;
I^ud skirl'd a* the laawa;
But her tap-pickU maiit was lost,
When kiuttlin' in the &uafr-housef
Wi' him that night
vn.
The auld guid wife's wceNlloordet niit^
Are round an* round divided.
And monie lads and lasaes* fates,
Are there that night decided :
Some kindle, couthy, aide by side,
An* burn tbegither trimly ;
Some start awa* wi* saucy pride,
Au* jump out-owre the chimlia
Fu* bigh that night
vm.
Jean slips in twa wi* tends e*e ;
Wha 'twas, she wadna tell ;
But this is Jock, an* this is me.
She savs in to hersel* :
He bleex*d owre her, and she owre him«
As they wad never mair park ;
Till fuff ! he started up the lum,
An* Jean had e'en a sair heart
To see't that night
IX.
Poor Willie, wi* his boio-kail runt.
Was brunt wi' primaie Blallie ;
An* Mallie, nae doubt, took the dnmt.
To be conipar'd to Willie :
Mall's nit lap out wi* pridefii* fling,
An* her ain fit it brunt it ;
While Willie lap, and swoor by jVny,
*Twas just the way he wanted
to be that night.
X.
Nell had the fause-house in her min'.
She pits hersel* an* Rob in ;
In loving bleeze they sweetly join.
Till white in ase thcy*rc sobbin' :
Nell's heart was dancin* at the Tiew,
She whisper'd Rob to look fbr*t :
• They go to the barn-yard, and pull eaeh, at thrst
several thnn, a stalk of oats. If the thhrd stalk wants
the top-piekie, that is. the grain at the top of the stalk,
the pariy in question willooiDe to the marriagt-bad
any thing but a maid.
t When the com is in a doubtfUl state, by being loo
Km, or wet, the stack-builder, by means of old ti»>
, dkc. makes a largo apartment in his staok, withaa
opening in the side which is fliirast eaposed to Um
wind ; this he caliii » fause-houae.
OuruinR the nuts is a favourite charm. Theynama
the lad and iau to each particular nut, as they lay them
in the fire, and accordingly as they bum quietly
94
thsr, or start from beside one another, tbs eouissint
isms oC tlM aourtibip will ba.
BCFRmr WOBKS.
w
Umeen ditt nifht.
XL
Bat Mirrai nt bdunt their bidc%
Hw* tlnaghti on Andrew Bell ;
8ki Wm them gtihin* at their craeki,
And ilipe ont bv henel* :
8ke thro' the yard the nearert takt,
An' to the kihi the goea then,
An' darirlina graipit for the bauln,
And in the Uum c/we* throw* then.
Right fear*t that night
XII.
An* aye the win*t, an* aye ithe swat,
I wat ahe made nae jaukin ;
Till aomething held within the pat,
Goid L— -d ! hot »he vtm quakin* !
Bat whether *twai the Deil hiinael',
Or whether 'twas a lutuk-^n,
Or whether it was Andrew Bell,
She did na wait on talk in'
To ii|»ear that night
XIII.
Wea Jenny to her Gr^unie mvs,
'* Will ye go wi* nie, gniuiiie ?
I*II ecrf lAe apple f at the phut,
I gat frae unck: Johnie :"
She ftiff*t her pipe wi* die u lunt,
In wrath »he was sae irap'rib*,
She notic't na, an oiile bniut
Her braw new wuntet aprun
Out thru' (Lit nighL
XIV.
** Ye little bkelpie-Iiiiinicr's t'aix !
How daur yc try uc sportin*,
Aa eeek the foul Thief ony place.
For him to apae your fortune :
Kae doubt but ye nuiy get a »iyhl !
Great caute ye hae tu fear it ;
For monie a ape haN gotten a fright.
An' liv'd an* di'd deletret
On sic a night.
XV.
" Ae hairat afure the Sherra^rooor,
I mind 't aa weel'a yeatrevn,
I was a gilpey then, I'm »urc
I waa na past fyftcen :
• Whoever would, with looDtMi, try diit ipell, mutt
alrietlyolMenretheiedirectkint: .SinUout, all akme,
lothe HIm, and, darUinir. ttnww Into the poI a clue of
Uneyam: wind it in a new due off the old one: amt,
towardi the latter end, lomethinK will hold the thread,
dmnand wAa ham4» f I. e. who h«ilds ? an amwer will
be returned firom the kiln-pot, by naming the Chris-
tlaQ and timame of your future npouacu
t Take a candle, and ffo alone to a looUng •glaw {
oat an apple befote it. and tome traditions lay, you ,
AooM comb your hair all the time: the Cms of your!
•ai^uffa] companion, to be, will be lecn in Iha tfaiiL m I
IfpaipimoTflryowilKmWcrt i
The aimmer had been eauM an* wal.
An' atuff waa unco green ;
An' ave a rantin kirn we gat.
An joat on MaOowee*
It fell that night.
XVL
** Our stibblc-rig was Rub M'Graeot
A clever, sturdy fallow ;
He's sin gat Eppie Sim wi' wean,
That lir'd in Achmacalla :
He gat kemp-Metdt* 1 mind it weel,
An' he made unco light u't ;
But mony a day was by kinuel',
He was cae sairly frighted
That vera night.*
XVII.
Than up gat fechtin' Jamie Fleck,
An' he swoor by his conscience.
That he could now kemp-aeed a peck ;
For it waa a* but nonsense !
The auk] gnid-man raught down the pock.
An' out a handfu' gied him ;
Syne bad him slip frae *mang the folk,
Sometime wheia nae ane see'd him.
An* try't that night
XVIII.
He marchea thro* amang the stadct*
Tho' he was somethii^ sturtin,
Hie ffraip he for a harrow taks,
An' haurls at his curpin :
An* ev'ry now an' then he saya»
" Hemp-seed I saw thee.
An' her that ia to be my laaa.
Come after me, and draw thee.
As &st this night"
XIX.
He whistl'd up Lord Lennox' march.
To keep his courage cheery ;
Altbo* his hair bq^an to arch.
He was sae fley'd an' eerie :
Till preti'ntly he hears a aqueak.
An' then a grane an' gruntle ;
He by his shouthcr gae a kedc.
An* tumbl'd wi' a wintle
Out-owre that night
XX.
He roar*J a horrid murder about*
In dreadfb* desperation !
Ao* yuuDg an' auld cam rinnin* out,
To hear the sad narration :
• Steal out unperceiTcd. and low a handftol of bemp.
wed: harrowhif! it with any thing you can convenient,
ly draw mtUar you. Reprayiow and then, • Heropased
I Mw thcv: hemp-weed I ssw theet and him <or her)
u^ ,*■ to be my tTu«.k>ve. come after me and pou
tn«c. Look over your left idioulder, and you will mo
the appearance of the perMm invoked, in the attitude
of pulling hemp. Some traditions lay, « come after
me. and shaw thee.' that Is, show thpslf : in whkli
caw it simply appears. Others omU the hanoite
•ndtay^'conaaOKna^iBdhBiinfrthMi*
TU "Mr ■>»» hllcliin Jmd M'Cnv,
Or cruuuiiic Mernn Humphie,
Till itnp ! fill tiallsl thn' thnii i' j
An' will wu it byt Grumphit
XXI.
Bin fiin vut la ihg born htc gaiM,
Td Vila (Ant ndtfi «' imUiii^i *
But for to nti the d«l W I4M,
She pit but little fiiih in :
fihe sifl the herd ■ pickle niti,
Tn watch, whilu for the ion ilie kCo,
In hopei tu n Tim Kippttn
Thit Ten night.
XXII.
She tunii the key wi" cunie Ihraw,
An' own: the threthoJd venture*;
Dat fint nn Riwnie giei 1 ca',
Syne bauldly in ilie enten ;
A Totlom rattled up the va'.
An' ihe cry'di L — d prewrre her !
An' ran ihra' iniddeD-hote an' a'.
An' pray'd wi' Keai and A^ivourt
Fu' fan that night.
XXIII.
Tbey hoy'l out Will, wi' aair advle* i
Then hecht him lome fine traw ane;
It ehanc'd Hie atoci he/addom'd Ibrict,^
Wa« limnicr-pr^it fbt tbrawin' j
He taki a iwirlle auld ni«*-oik|
For KHne black, grauuma culin |
Till •kin
1 biypei n
AlTani
XXIV.
A wautun widow Lnsie ivai,
A> aatj u a kiltlen ;
But Ocl> 1 thai aight, initiig the (hawa,
She got a (earfii* icItliD' '.
She thru' tb« whiui. an' by the caiin.
XXV.
Whyla own a linn the buraia pla]>ii
At thro' the glen it wimpl't;
Wbylei rouDd a rocky icar it Krayi (
Whylc* in * wiel it dinpl't ;
Whyln gUllct'd to tha nightly nn
Wi' bickeiing, daocinc danW ;
Whylea eookil nndernouh dw biHa,
Below the tptvadin; baid.
UnMcn thM night,
XX VL
Anang the brackens «< tbc hm,
Betu-een her an' the moon.
The dril, or cbe an aoilet qaey,
" E up an- gie a croon :
Lenie'i lirwt maiit lap the hool ;
er lairrack-height ihe jompit,
lilt afit,an'iiilliai>«)I
t-ewn the lugt >he plmopit,
Wi' a plunge tint Blgbt,
Tbe Uggla three* are ranged,
Jul ev'rv time gnat care i> u'en,
TDHe'thm duly changed:
Auld uncle John, wha w«lluck'a joya
Sin' Mar't-^ear did dnire,
icauK he gat the IDom-di<h thrice,
lie beav'd ikem on the fin,
In Tncti that n%kL
Iieap an cbeerjr ;
i' fragrant luot.
Fu' blithe that night.
BUaN8* WORKS.
VUI
ADLD FARMER'S
yXW-TIAft MOftHIVa lALUTATIOy TO BII
AULD MARE MAGGIE,
on OXnifO KKK THK ACCCfTOKSB ftlFTOP COKK
TO HAKIKL in THE KIW TXAIU
A Ouid iVev. Year I wish tbee, Maggie !
Hae, there's a ripp to thy auld baggie :
Tho' tboa*t boiro-backit, now, aa' knaggi^
I'm Been the da^t
Thou could haa gaen like ooie staggie
Out-owre the lay.
Tho* DOW thoQ*t dowie, stiff, an' eraiy,
An* thf auld hide's as white's a daisjr,
I're seen thee dappl't, sleek, au' glaizie,
A bonnie gray :
He should been tight that duur't to raize thee,
Anee in a day.
Thou anoe was i* the foremost rank, ■
AJlBy buirdJy, steeve, an* swank.
An* set weel down a shapely shank
As e'er tred yird ;
An' could hae flown out-owre a stank,
Like onie bird. ,
It's now some nine-an'-twenty year,
Sin* thou was my guid fiither** lueere ;
He gied me thee, o' tocher clear,
An' fifty mark ;
Tho' it was sma', *twas weel-won gear,
An* thou was stark.
When first I gaed to woo my Jenny,
Ye then was trottin* wi* your minnie :
Tho* ye was trickie, slee, an' fiinnie.
Ye ne'er was donsie.
But hamdy, tawie, quiet, an* eannie.
An' unco sonsie.
That day, ye pranc'd wi* muckle pride,
When ye bure haroe my bonnie bride :
An' sweet an' giacefu' fche did ride,
Wi* maideu air !
JTjrfe Steweart I could bragged wide.
For aic a pair.
Tho* now )-e dow but hoyte an* hobble,
An* wintle like a samount -coble.
That day ye was a jinker noble,
Fer heels an* win' !
An' ran them till they a' did wauUe,
Far, far behin*.
Wlicn thou an' I were young and skeigh.
An' stable-meaU at fairs were dreigh,
Huw thou wad prsoce, sn* snore, an* hkreigh,
Ah* tak the road !
Town's bodies ran, an* Rtood abcigh.
An* ca*t thei'. mad.
When thou wu corn't, an' I was mellow,
We took the road ayo like a swallow :
At Brooeee thou had De*er a fellow.
For pith an* speed ;
But ey*ry tail thou pay't them hollow,
Whare'er thou gaed.
The sma*, droop>romprt, hunter cattle,
BCigbt aiblina waur*t thee for a brattle ;
But sax Scotch miles thou try*t their mettle,
An* gar*t them whaiale :
Nae whip nor spur, but just a wattle
O* saugh or haael.
Thou was a nohie JUtie4an\
As e'er in tug or tow was drawn ;
Aft thee an* I, in aught hours gaun,
On guid Blarch weather.
Hoe tum*d sax rood beside our ban*,
For days thegither.
Thou never braindg*t, an* fetch*t, an' fliikit.
But thy auld tail thou wad hae whiskit,
An* bprcad abreed thy weel-fill'd brisket,
Wi* pith an* pow'r.
Till spritty knowes wad rair*t an* ri«ket,
An' slypet owre.
Mlien frosts lay lang, an' snaws were deep,
An* threaten*d labour back to keep,
I gied thy cog a wee bit heap
Aboon die timmer :
I keD*d my Maggie wadna sleep
For that, or simmer.
In cart or car thou never reestit ;
The steyest brae thou wad hae &c*t it ;
Thou never lap, and sten't, and breastit,
Then stood to blaw ;
But just thy step a wee thing hastit.
Thou snoov*t awa.
My pletigh ia now thv bairn-time a* :
Four gallant brutes aa e er did draw ;
Forbye sax mae, I've sell't awa,
That thou hast nurst :
They drew me thretteen puod an* twat
The vera warst.
Mnnie a nair daurk we twa hae wrought.
An' wi* the weary warl* fought !
An* monie an anxious day, I thought
We wad be beat !
Yet here to crazy age we're brought,
Wi' somethii^ yet.
And think na, my auld, trusty senrau*.
That now perhaps tliou's le^s deservin'.
An' thy atdd days may end in storvin'.
For my laatybn,
A heapit stimpart, I'll reserve ane
Laid by fiir you.
We've worn to crasy years thegither ;
We'U tqyto abovi wi* wt Mithar ;
MBMd.
««
Wi* tentia iBiK rU fit iV ledifr,
To •ome kain'd rig^
'Whare ye may nbUy raz your leather,
Wi* Bma' fatigue.
TO A MOUSE,
ON TUKVINO HSK UP IN HIK NKST WRR TRS
PLOUGH, MOTKMBZft, 1785.
Wek, *Ieekit, cowVin*, tiin*rous beaitie,
O, what a panic's in thy breaade !
Thou need na' start awa aae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle !
I wad be laith to rin an* chase thee,
Wi* murd*ring po/lb /
]*in truly !>orry man's dominion
I lax broken Nature*s social union.
An* justifies that ill opinion
Which makes thee atartle
At me, thy poor earth-born companion
An* fclloW'THortal !
I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thiere ;
What then ? poor beastie, thou man lire !
A daimen icktr in a tArave
*S a sma* request :
1*11 get a blessin* wi* the lave.
An* never mbn*t !
Thy wee bit bousie, too, in ruin !
Its silly wa's the win's are strewin' !
An* naething, now, to big a new aiie,
O* fciggage green !
An* bleak December's winds enMuin*,
Baith sncU an' keen !
Thou saw the fields laid bare an* waste,
An* weary winter comin' fast.
An* coiie here, beneath the blast.
Thou thought to dwell.
Till crash ! the cruel eouiier past
Out thro* thy cell.
That wee bit heap o* leaves an* stibble.
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble !
Now thou's tum'd out, for a* thy tronble.
But house or bald.
To thole the winter's sleety dribble,
An* cranreuch cauld !
But, Mou$U, thou art no thy lane,
In proving forestpht may be vain :
The beat laid schemes o* mice an' men^
Gang aft agley,
An* lea*e us noaght but grief an pain,
For promb'd joy.
Mil tbo« art bleat, compar'd wi* me f
The prtKHt Qoij toncheth thee :
But, Oeh! IbMkwiri Mil Bjr /■
On praapecta drear :
An* forward, thoagh I canoa aae,
I pim wa* Jkar.
A WINTER NIGHT.
MM
Poor nakad wraldics, wtaansoa^cr you
That bide the paldnff of thb pWIess I '
How shall your housMMS hearts, and
Your kMpTd and windoVd n
From seasons such aa these I
daflndyot
«P«M
Whin biting BwretUy fell and doore.
Sharp ahivera through the leafleaa bow'r ; ..
When PhahuM gi'ea a short-liv*d glower
Far Bonth the lilt,
Dim<Kiark*niiig through the flaky ahow'r
Or whirling drift :
Ae night the aCorm the ateeplea rocked.
Poor labour aweet in aleep waa loekad.
While buma, wi* anawy wreaths npHshokedy
WUd-eddyiag awiri.
Or through the mining outlet booked,
I>own headlong hurl.
List'ning, the doora an* wionoekf imtde^
I thought me on the ourie cattle,
Or silly sheep, wha bide thia brattle
O' winter war.
And throi^h the drift, deep-lairii^ aprattle^
Beneath a acar.
Ilk happing bird, wee. helpleaa thing,
That in the meity month o* spring.
Delighted me to bear thee sing.
What comea o* thee ?
Wliare wilt thoa oow'r thy cluttering wii^
An* close thy e'e?
£v*n you on mnrd*ring errands toil'd,
Lone from your savage homea ezil'd.
The blood- atain*d rooat, and sheep-cote apoil'd^
My heart forgets,
While pitileaa the tempest wild
Sore on you beata.
Now Phaebtt in her midnight reign.
Dark muffled, view'd the dreary plain ;
Still crowding thoughts, a pensive train.
Rose in my soul.
When on my ear thi;* plaintive strain.
Slow, solemn
* Blow, blow, ye winds, with hearia goat !
And frerze, ye bitter-biting froat ;
Descend, ye chilly, tiniothcriug snows ;
Not all your rage, as now, united, showi
More hard unkindneas, unrelenting,
Vengeful malice unrepentingy
80
BURNS' WORKS.
Than hetven-niiiBiiiiM mm on brotlwr man
beslowi!
See stern Opprevion'e in>n gript
Or mad Ambition** gorf nand.
Sending, like blood-hounds from the slipy
Woe, Want, and Murder o*er a land !
Even in the peaceful rural vale,
Truth, weeping, tells the mournful tale.
How pampered Luxury, Flatt'ry by her side.
The parasite empoisoning her car,
With all the servile wretches in the rear.
Looks o'er proud property, extended wide ;
And eyes the simple rustic hind,
Whose toil upholds the glittVing show,
A creature of another kind.
Some courser subfctauce, unrefined.
Placed for her lordly use thus far, thus vile,
below.
Where, where is Lave*s fond, tender throe,
With lordly Honour** lofty bruw.
The powers you proudly own ?
Is there, beneath Love*s noble name.
Can harbour, dark, the selluh aim,
To bless himwlf alone !
Mark maiden-innocence a prey
To love-prstending snares.
This boasting Honour turns away.
Shunning salt Pity*s rising ^way,
BegardleM of the tears, and unavailing pray*rs !
Perhaps, this hour, in Mis'ry's squalid nest.
She strains your infant to her joyless breast.
And with a mother's fears shrinks at the rock-
ing blast !
Oh ye ! who, sunk in beds of down.
Feel not a want but what yourselveH create,
Think« for a moment, on his wretched £&te,
Whom friends and fortune quite disown !
ni-satisfy'd keen Nature's clam'rous call,
Stretch*d on his straw he lays himself to
sleep,
While thro* the ru^ed roof and chinky wall.
Chin o'er his lumbers piles the drifty heap !
Think on the dungeon's grim confine,
Where guilt and poor mUfortune pine !
Guilt, erring niun, relenting view !
But shall thy legal rage pursue
The wretch, already crushed low
By cruel Fortune** undeaervc<l blow ?
Affliction** sons are brothers in distress,
A brother to relieve, how exquisite the
bliss!'
I heard nae mair, fur Chanticleer
Shook off the pouthery snaw,
And haird the uiorning with a cheer,
A cottage -rousing craw.
But deep thi* truth inipresscfl my mind —
Thro' all hiii work;* abroad,
The heart benevolent and kind
The most resembles God.
EnSTLE TO DAVIE,
JmuuoTf
L
While winds firae aff Ben^Lamtmd blinr»
And bar the doors wi* driving enaw,
And bing us owra the ingle,
I set me down to pasa the time^
And spin a verse or twa o* rhyme,
In hamely westlan* jingle.
White frosty winds Uaw in the drif^
Ben to the chimla lug,
I grudge a wee the great folk's gift.
That live sae bien and snug :
I tent less, and want leas
Their roomy fireside ;
But hanker and canker.
To see their corsed pride.
n.
Its hardly in a body*s pow'r
To keep at times frae being sour.
To see how things are shar'd ;
How best o' chiels are whiles in want.
While coofi on countless thousands rant.
An* ken na how to wair't :
But, Davie, lad, ne'er fash your head.
Tho* we hae little gear.
We're fit to win our daily bread.
As lang's we're hale and fier :
< Mair speir na, nor fear na'f
Auld age ne'er mind a kg.
The last o't, the warst o't,
1% only for to beg.
in.
To lie in kilns and bams at e'en,
Wlien banes are craz'd and bluid is thin.
Is doubtless, great distress !
Yet then, content could make us Uest ;
£v'n then sometimes we'd snatch a taste
Of truest happiness.
The honest heart that's firee frae a*
Intended fraud or guile,
However fortune kick the ba'.
Has aye some cause to smile ;
And mind still, you'll find s^
A comfort this nae sma' :
Nnc mair then, we'll care then,
Nae farther can we &*.
IV.
Wliat though, like commoners of air.
We wauder out we know not where.
But either house or hall ?
Yet nature's charms, the hills and woodi.
The sweeping vales, and foaming floodiy
Are free alike to all.
In days when daisies deck the ground.
And blackbirds whistle dear,
• David Sillar, one of the chib at Taiballan, aat
author of a volume of poems in tbt S«oCtiali diMfl*
t Ramsay.
ifoms.
Si
With luHitei jof our Wrti wiH bound.
To !iee the coming year :
On hraea when ve pleaw^ then.
We'll sit tnd aowth a tune ;
Syne rhyme till't, we'll time tilft.
And tiog't when we hae done.
V.
It*s no in titles nor in rank ;
It*s no in wealth like Lnn'on bank,
To purchase peace and rest ;
It*s no in making muckle mair :
It's no in books ; it*s no in lear,
To mak us truly blest !
If happiness hae not her seat
And centre in the breast.
We may be wise, or rich, or great,
But never can be blest :
Nae treasures, nor pleasures,
Ckrald make us liappy lang ;
The heart ay*es the part aye,
That makes us right or wring.
VI.
Think ye that sic as you and I,
Wha drudge and drive through wet an* dry,
Wi* never-ceasing toil ;
Think ye, are we less blest than they,
Wha scarcely tent us in their way.
As hardly worth their while ?
Alas ! how oft in haughty mood,
God*s creatures they oppress !
Or dse, neglecting a* that's guid,
They riot in excess ?
Baith careless and fiearless
Of either heav'n or hell ;
Esteeming and deeming
It's a' an idle tale !
VII.
Then let us cheerfu* acquiesce ;
Nor make our scanty pleasures less.
By pining at our state ;
And, even should misfortunes come,
I here wha sit, hae met wi* some^
An*s thank^* for them yet.
They gie the wit of age to youth ;
They let us ken ourseT ;
They make us see the naked truth,
llie real guid and ilU
Tho* loases and crosses.
Be lessons right severe^
There's wit there, yell get there,
Ye'll find nae other where.
VIII.
But tent me. Dame, aoe o* hearts !
(To say aught else wad wring the carter
And flatt'ry I detest)
This life has joys for yon and I ;
And joys that riches ne'er could boy ;
And joys the very beat
There's a' th* pUantn$ o* <Ae hearty
The lover an* the frien' ;
Ya hae your Mtg, your deareit ptrt|
It warnlt mo^ it ctiarmi AM,
To mention but her fMune ;
It heats me, it beets me,
And sets me a' on flame !
IX.
O all ye Powers who rule above !
O Thou whose very self art, /ore /
Thou knowest my words sincere !
The life-blood streaming thro' my heart,
Or my more dear immortal pait,
Is not more fonilly dear !
When heart-corroding care and grief
Deprive my soul of rest.
Her dear idea brings relief
And solace to my breast.
Thou Beinpf All-seeing,
O hear my fervent pray'r ;
Still take her and make her
Tkp ntost peculiar care !
X.
An hail, ye tender feelings dear !
The smile o£ love, the firiendly tear,
The sympathetic glow ;
Long since, this world's thomv ways
Had numbered out my weary day*.
Had it not been for you !
Fate still has blest me with a friend.
In every care and ill ;
And oft a more endearinj^ band,
A tie more tender still.
It %htenB, it brightens
The tenebrific scene.
To meet with, and greet with
My Davie or my Jean,
XL
O. how that name inspires my style !
Hie words come skelpin* rank and flle»
Amaist before I ken !
The ready measure rina as fine.
As Phctbue and the fiunons Aiiie
Were glowrin' owre my pen.
My spaviet Pegatue will limp,
Till anoe he's fairly bet ;
And tlttn he'll hiltch, and stilt, md jamp^
An* rin an* unco fit :
But lest then, the beist then.
Should rue his hasty ride,
I'll light now, and dight now
His sweaty wixen'd hide.
THE LAMENT,
OCCASIONED BY THStmrOKTUVATB XHVX Of A
PKHND's AMOUB.
Alas t how oft does Goodness wotaid ttsrif,
And ssrset ^^^MioM prove the spring of woe
O TBou pde orb, that aOent ihtoef,
Whilf c«t«UDtroubled laoruk rififl
BURNS' WORKS.
Thoa MOt A witleh tbtt inly pine*,
Aikd wanders here to wail and weep !
inUi woe I nightly vigils keep.
Beneath thy wan unwarming beam ;
And mourn, in lamentation deep,
How life and love are all a dream.
II.
I joylen view thy rays adorn
The £untly-marki>d distant hill :
I joyless view thy trembling horn.
Reflected in the gurgling rill :
My fondly-fluttering heart be still !
Thou busy power, RcmembrAnre, cense !
Ah ! must the agonizing thrill
For ever bar returning peaee !
III.
No idly-feign*d poetic pains.
My sad, ]ove>lorn lamentiogt daim ;
No shepherd*s pipe— Areadian strains ;
No frUed tortures, quaint and tame :
The plighted fiuth ; the mutual flame ;
The oft-attested Powers above ;
The promUed Father* 9 tender name ;
These were the pledges of my love !
IV.
Encircled in her clasping arms.
How have the raptur*d moments flown !
How have I wish*d for Fortune's charms,
For her dear sake, and hers alone !
And must I think it ? is she gone.
My secret heart's exulting boast ?
And does she heedless hear my groan ?
And is she ever, ever lost !
V.
Oh ! can she bear m Itase a heart,
So lost to honour, lost to truth.
As from the fondest lover part,
The plighted hunband of her youth !
Alas ! life's path may 1k> un>uiooth !
Her way may lie thru* mu^h distress !
Tlien, who her piin;;!i and pains will MX)th?
Her torrows share and moke thera less ?
VI.
Ye winged hours tlmt oVr u.i past,
Enraptur'd more, the more enj:»yM,
Your dear remembrance in mv breast.
My fondly-treosur'd thoughts employ *d.
That breast, how dreary nuw, and void,
For her too scanty once of room !
Ev'n ev'ry ray of hope destroy'd,
And not a wish to giU the gloom !
VII.
The mom that warns th* approaching day,
Awakes me up to toil and woe :
I see the hours in long array,
That I must sufier, lingering, slow.
Full many a pang, and roanv a throe,
lUvn ifCO&ctioD*t direful train,
Must wring my soul, ere Phcsbus, low.
Shall kiss the distant, Wi'stem main.
VIII.
And when my nightly couch I \t\\
Sore-harasif'd out with cire auci grief.
My toiUlieat nerve*, and tfar-wt>rn !•>«•,
Keep watching* with the nii^htiy thief:
Or if 1 slumber, fancy, chief,
Reigns liHvrKanl-wilfl. in sure afrii<;ht :
Ev*u day, :ill-ln*t«-r, brlii,i;s rdi.'f,
Friuu such a huriur>l)rcathing uight.
IX.
O ! thou hri;:ht qnccn, w'lo oVr x\* rsp.in'e
Now liiichcHt nri.ijn'st, with l»ouudI«r<^ htrny I
Oft has thy hilcnt-ninrkin:; j^'lince
Observed us, fondly waudcriiig, ^tray :
The time, unheeded, sped away.
While love's luxurious pul«e !>cat high,
Beneath thy silver-gleaming ray.
To murk the nmtual-kiudling eye.
X.
Oh ! scenes in strong remembrance set !
Scenes, never, never, to return !
Scenes, if in stupor I forget.
Again I feel, again I burn !
From ev'ry joy and pleasure torn,
Life's weary vale 1*11 wander thro* ;
And hopeless, comfortless, 1*11 mourn
A faithless woman's broken vow.
DESPONDENCY :
AV ODE.
I.
Oppress'o with grief, oppress'd with care>
A burden more than I can bear,
I sit me down and sigh :
O life ! thou art a galUng load.
Along a ruugh, a weary road,
To wretches such as I !
Dim backward as I cast my view,
What sick'ning scenes appear !
What sorrows yet may pierce me thro*|
Too justly I may fear !
Still caring, despairing.
Must be my bitter doom ;
My woes here shaH close ne'er.
Cut with the closing tomb !
IL
Happy ye sons of busy life.
Who, equal to the bustling strife,
No other view regard !
Ev'n when the wished eiuTs deny*d,
Yet while the busy meang are ply'c^
They bring their own reward :
Whilst I, a hope-abandon*d wight^
UnfitttMl with an aim.
Meet ev'r>' sad returning night.
And joykn mora the sune j
v\
POEMS.
Yotl, bustling, and justling*
i^oi^et each grief and pain ',
I, litUean, yet restless,
Find ev*ry prospect vaiu.
III.
How blest the solitary** lot,
Who, all-forgettinif, all-forpof,
Within his humble cell.
The cavern wild with tangling roots,
Sits o'er his nen'ly-^ather'd fruiti.
Beside his crystal well !
Or, haply, to bis ev'iiing tliought,
By unfrequi^uted stream.
The ways of men arc diNtaiit bi-ought,
A faint collected dre.im :
WJuIl* prai>in'r, and raisiiip
His thimghcs tu Lcav*n uu high;
As wand'ring, nieamrrinff,
He views thu buleiiui sky.
IV.
Than I, no lonely hermit placed
Where never human footstep traoed^
Lefls fit to play the part ;
The lucky moment to improve,
Andjuit to stop, andJHSi to move,
With self-respecting art :
But nh ! those pleasures, loves, and joys.
Which I too keenly taste,
The Solitary can dexpise.
Can want, and yet be blest .'
He needs not, he heeds nol^
Or human love or hate,
WhiUt I here must cry here,
At perfidy ingrate 1
V.
Oh ! enviable, early daj-s,
When dancing thoughtlesa pleasure's mase,
To care, to guilt unknown !
How ill-exchan^ged for riper timcH,
To feel the follies, or the crimes,
Of others, or my own !
Ye tiny elves that guiltless spor^
Like linnets in the bush,
Ye little know the ilia ye court.
When manhood is your wish !
The losses, the crosses,
That aetive man engage .'
The feara all, the tears all.
Of ditki declining agt I
WINTER :
A DiaOE.
I.
Tm wintry west extends his blast,
And bail and rain does blaw ;
Or, the stormy north sends drhdng forth
The blinding aleet and maw :
While tnmbHng brown, the bam oomei down^
And rom lirae bank to bne j
•••
And bird and beast in cttfart net
And poBs the heartlen day.
IL
" The sweeping bhHt, the aky o'
The joyless winter-day,
Let others fear, to me more dear
Than all the pride of May :
The tempest's howl, it sootUei my tool.
My griefii it seems to join.
The leaikM trees my fancy pleaae^
Their fate resembles mine !
HL
Thou Power Supreme, whose mighty icheiiit
These woes of mine fulfil,
Here, firm, I reit, they muMt be best.
Because they are TAy Will 1
Then all I want (O, do thou grant
Til is one request of mine ! )
Since to enjoy thou dost deny.
Assist me to rtsiyu.
THK
COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT.
IKfCElBED TO R. AIKEN, ESQ.
*****'**'^'^M*MMWWl#««SWW««S
Let not ambitkm mock their ussftal toiU
Hidr homely joys, and destiny otavure i
Not mndeur hear, with s divlalnful smile,
Ine short and simple anuals of the poor (friy.
Mr ]ov*d, my honoured, much
firiend!
No mercenary bard his homage payi :
With honeat pride I scorn each sdfish tndt
My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and
praise:
To you I sing, in simple Seotti$h lays,
The knrly train in life*s sequestered aeeoe;
Th« native fiselinga Strang, tha guilataH
^»y» ;. [been ;
What Aitken in a cottage would hcra
Ah ! tho' his worth unknown, fiu* happier tbef%
I weeni
IL
November chill bUws loud wi* angry aongfi ;
The short*ning winter-day is near a dose;
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh ;
The blackening trains o' crawa to tlnir
repose:
The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goci,
ThU night his weekly moil is at an e«d,
CoDecti his spadef, his mattocki^ and kk
hoes,
Hoping the mom in ease and rest to spaM^
And weary, o*er the moor, hia course doea
ham«ward bend.
U5
* DTi Yowif .
BURNS* WOAKS.
'lit
At kng^ lib londr eoC appaan in ritv,
BfBMth the dicmr of aa igMl tree ;
Th* czptelut wm Airngt^ toddliB, itachMr
tkra* [aa* glee.
To meet their Dad, wi* fliditeria' mnae
Hie wee bit iof le, falinkin' boaaily,
Hie dean hcarth-etane, hie thriftie wi/k'$
— ii|fj
The liepiBf infiuit prattUiig on hie knee»
Doce a* hie weary carking cares bcgvile*
And makee him quite finrget hie labour an* hie
toiL
IV.
Beljre the dder baime come drappiog in«
At eenrioe out, amaog the £vmere nmn'y
Some ca' the pkugh, eome herd, eome tentie
rin
A canoie errand to a necbor town ;
Their ddeet hope, their Jmny, woman
grown.
In youthfii* Uoom, love apeiUin* in her e*e,
CSence hame^ perhape, tn ehow a bra* new
Or depoeit her eair-won penny-fee,
1!a hdp her pimtedear, if they in henJehip be.
V.
Wi* joy unleign'd brothers end eistere meet,
An* each far other** wedfiwc kindly epiere:
The eodel honn^ ewift-wing*d, unnodc'd
ileet;
Eech telle the nncoe that he eece or hears ;
The perents, pertiel, rye their hopeful yeers ;
Anticipation fbrwerd points the riew.
TIm meCAer, wi' her needle en' her sheers,
Gere anld dare look amaist es weel*s the
Thttftiker mixes a* wi* admonition due.
VL
Their master's an* their mistrees*s command,
The yonnkers a' are wemed to obey ;
Aad mud their laboure wi* en credent bend.
And ne*er, tho' out o* sight, to jeak or play :
" An* O ! be sore to £eer the Lokd alway !
An* mind yonr duty, duly, mom an* night !
Lset in temptetion*s path ye gang eetray.
Implore hie counsel and assisting might :
TWy aerer sought in Tain that eooght the
Lord aright !*
vn.
Bat harii ! a rap comee gently to the door ;
Jmtnjff wha kens the meaning o* the eeme,
Tdle how a neebor lad cam o'er the nmor.
To do eome errands, and couToy her heme.
The wily mother seee the coneeioiM flame
Sparkle in j€imif$9*t, tad flueh her chedc ;
anziooa care^ inquirse
While Juu^ hafflins ie afraid to epeak ;
Will plcae*d the mother bum it*t hm wild,
tmi:
VP kindly welcome Juinjf bringe him ben *,
A etrampb youth ; he take the mother's eye ;
Blithe JtmM^ eece the visit's no ill te'cn;
The fiUher cracks of hoceee, pleugbs, and
kye. [joy.
The youngster's artless heart o'enows wT
But blate and laithfu', eearce can wed
bdiave;
The neother, wi* a woman's wiles, can spy
What mekes the youth eee baihla' an* eee
grare;
Wed ^eee'd to think her hain't reepeeted like
thelaTC.
IX.
O happy lore ! where lore like this le fiNmd !
O heart-fclt rapturee ! blim beyond com-
pare!
Ftc paced modi thie weary moHal roumdf
And ssge experienee bids me this declare— •
< If Hear'n a draught of hearenly pleeenre
One cerdid in thie mdanchdy Tale, *
*Tb when a youthful, loring, modeet pair.
In other's arms breathe out the tender tele,
Beneath the milk-white thorn that eeente the
CT'ning gale.*
Ie there^ in human form, that bears a
Awfctch! avillain! ket to lore and truth!
That can, widi etudied, sly, enenaring art.
Betray eweet Jinmy't unsoepceting youth ?
Curse on hie peijur'd arte! dissembling emoeth!
Are honour, Tirtae, conecience all esil'd ?
b there no pity, no relenting ruth.
Points to the persnts fimdling o'er their
child!
Then paints the ruin'd maid, and their distiae-
tion wild?
XL
Btat now the eupper crowne their suaple
board,
Thehalesomeporrildk, chief o'JbeKd'f food :
The sowpe thdr only Mawkit doce eflbrd.
That 'yont the hallan snugly chowe her
cood :
The dame brings forth in complimentd mood.
To grsce the lad, her weeUiain'd kebbuck
fell,
An' aft he's prest, an' aft he ca's it guid ;
The frugd wifie, garruloue, will tdl.
How 'twas a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the
belL
XIL
The cheerfu* sapper done^ wT eeriooe fS^e,
They, round the ingle^ fiirm a drde wide ;
The sire turns o'er, wi* petriarchd graoi^
The big Aa'-^fUk, ance hie &ther'a pride :
Hie bonnet xcT'rendy ie laid aeide^
Hie lyart haffete wearing thin aa' boa :
Those etniaa tint onci did fwwt la Zka
tOSMS.
Ite wain t portiott Wid& jodiciotit etn ;
And ' LA tw levnkip Goo !* he nyt, with
■oleinA tir.
XIIL
They chAot their artlcM notn in simple guise ;
They tune their heirts, by fkr the noblest
tim : [rise ;
Perhaps 2>Kii4/ee*« wiU warbling mestures
Or plaiotire jliartyr$, worthy of the name ;
Or noble £lpn beets the heav'n-ward flame.
The sweetest far of Seotia*i holy lays :
Compared with these, Italian trills are time ;
The tickrd ears no heart- felt rapturesraise ;
Nae unison hae they with our Creator's ^Ruse.
XIV.
The priest-like father reads the sacred pagr.
How Abrom was the friend o/God on high ;
Or, JIfoars bade eternal war&re wage
With AmaUIC$ ungracious progeny ;
Or how the royal hard did groaning lie [ire ;
Beneath the stroke of HcavVa irenging
Or, Job* 9 pathetic pUint, and wailing cry ;
Or rapt laaiak't wild, seraphfe fire ;
Or other holy seers that tune the saered lyre.
XV.
Perhaps the Chriftian voittme b the theme.
How guiltless blood for guilty man was
shed ; [name.
How Ne, who bore in Heaven the second
Had not on earth whereon to by hb head ;
How hb first followers and servants sped ;
The precepts sage they wrote to many a
HowACfWholoneinPsfsioebanbhed, [bnd:
Saw in the snn a mighty angel t>Und ;
And heard great Bab*hm*$ doom pronounced by
Hcaren's command.
XVL
Then kneeling down to Hjeavim*s ztunal
KiKO, [F»y» •
The jotnf, the faiker, and the ku$band
Hope * springs tinlting on triumphant wing,*
That tkuM they all shall meet in future
There ever hmk in uncreated rays, [days :
No moc« to sigh or shed the bitter tear.
Together hymning their Creator's praise»
In such society, yet still more dear ;
While circling time moires round in an eternal
sphere.
XVIL
Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride,
In all the pomp of method, aiui of art.
When men dispUy to congregations wida^
Derotion^s er'ry grace, except the heart I
The PowV, inceiuMdt the pagMnt will desert.
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal etok ;
But haply, in some cottage &r apart,
May hear, well-pleased^ the language of the
soul;
And in hb hook of lift the inmalei poor enniL
xvnL
Then homeward all take off their ieY*ral wqr %
The youngling cotti^^em retire to reet :
The parent pair their srcrrf komagt pay^ •
And proflfer up to Heaven the waim riqme>»
That He who tx)^^* the raven's cUm'rous :
And derks the lily fair in flow*ry prida^
Would, in the way his wiiidom sees the
For them and tor their little ones provide )
But chiefly in their hearts with jfrnce diirim
preside.
XIX.
From scenes like tliew old Seotia*9
springs
That makes her loved at home,
abroad: '
Princes and lords are hut the breath of ki^fi,
** An honebt nuui's the noblest woA. df
God!''
And cerfea, in fair virtue's heav'nly roadf
The cottage leaves the palaeo tu bdliai{
What b a k>rdling*s pomp ! a cnmbrona lotd*
Disguisiug oft the wretch of human Unit
Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refined !
XX.
O Scotia ! my dear, my native soil !
For whom my warmest wiok to H<
sent!
Long may thv hardy sons of rvstie toil.
Be Uest with health, and peaee, and
content!
And, O ! may Haav'n their simplt livei
vent
From Luxury's contagion, weak and Wb I
Then, howe'er crown* and eoreneCt be VH^
A virtwmo poptdaeo may rise the wUll^
And stand a wah of fire aronnd their
lo^tdltU.
XXL
O Tkou / who pour'd the patriotie tidi^
That atraam'd thro' WaOaet't
heart;
Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pridi^
Or nobly die, the aecond glorioas party
(The patriot's God, peculiarly thou act,
Hb firiend, inspirer, guardian, and icwni !)
O never, never, Scotia'a realm desert ;
But still iht patriot and the j»atrMe
In bright successiou raise, her ocnamcaft
guard!
* FopiTi Wbidsof FoicMf
MAN WAS MADE TO MOURN t
A nuoi.
Wbxv chin Kovembei'a snriy bUH
Made fields and Ibraali ban^
One ev'niii^ as I wandered hkk
Akog the ba*s «C ^1
BURNS* WORKS.
I 9Dj*d a mtn, wIiom i|^ step
wem'd w«aiy, worn with ctre ;
Hb face wai furrow'd o*er with yean,
And hoary wa« hu hair.
II.
Young »tran{^r, whither wandVcft thou ?
B^n th« rev'rend *a^ ;
DoiM tliirat of wealth thy »top couKtraioi
Or youthful ple.i*«ure*it rage ?
Oft haplvt preiit with cami and woef.
Too noon thou h3«t hegan
To wander forth, with me, to utourn
The miierien of man !
III.
The lun that overhang* yon moon,
Out-spreading far and wide,
Where hundriHls l«il>our to oupport
A haughty lordliog'w prido ;
Tyt leen you weary winter-sun
Twice ftM-ty times return ;
Aad e«**ry time hat added proofi.
That man wm made to mourn.
IV.
O man ! wliile in thy early yean,
H*w prodigal of time !
Mia-apending all thy precious houn ;
Thy glorioua youthful prime !
Abnriiala fidliai take tha away ;
Licentious passions hum ;
Vhich tenfold foroo gives Nature's law.
That man was made to mourn.
V.
Lotk not alom on yoathftil prime,
Or ina»hood*B actiro might ;
Man then is unefiil to his kind,
Supported is his right :
But see him ou the edga of life.
With carea and sorrown worn,
1k«i ago and want. Oh ! ill.matcli*d pair !
Show roan was made to mourn.
VI.
A few Mim fevouritca of fate,
Ib plMsmvB's lap carat ;
Yet, think not all the rieh and gi-eat
An likewist truly bhiit.
Bat, Oh ! what erowd* in every laml,
Are wretched and forlorn ;
Thro* weary life thi'< le-«on Ifirn,
That man was made to mourn.
VII.
Many and sharp the nuinVouM UN,
Inwoven with our frame !
More pointed still we make nur»elv(>s,
Begret, remorse, and sLime !
And man, whose hmv'n -erected fare
The smiles of love ailorn,
Man's inhumanity to man
Makvi couutlcbs thoiMindi moom !
vm.
See yonder poor, o*erlahour*d wight,
So abject, mean, and vile^
Mlio begx a brother of the earth
To give him leave to toil ;
And see his lordly ^eZ/oir-arorm
The poor petition spurn.
Unmindful', tho* a weeping wife
And helplea offspring mourn.
IX.
If I'm design'd yon lordling*s slave-
By Nature's law design'd.
Why #as an independent wish
E'er planted in my mind ?
If not, why am I subject to
His cruelty or scorn ?
Or why has man the will and pow*r
To make his fellow mourn ?
X.
Yet, let not this too much, my son.
Disturb thy youthful breast :
This partial yiew of human-kind
Is surely not the last !
The poor, oppressed, honest man,
Had never, sure, been born.
Had there not been some racompense
To comfort those that mourn !
XI.
O Death ! the poor man's dearest firiendt
The kindest and the best !
Welcome the hour my aged limbs
Are laid with thee at rest !
The great, the wealthy, fear thy blow.
From pomp and ph^Mure torn ;
But, Oh ! a bleKt relief to those
That, weary-laden, mourn !
A PRAYER
IS Tlir PROSPRCT OF DKATH.
I.
O TiioiT unknown, Almighty Cau«
Of all my hope and fear !
In wliooe drfnd prevnce, ere an hour,
Porhnpii I mn»t appcnr !
II.
If I have wander'd in those paths
Of life I ought to shun ;
A^ somttkiitff^ loudly, in mif breast.
Remonstrates I have done ;
III.
Thou know'st that Thou hast formed
With passions wiki and strong ;
And liHt'uing to their witching voicf
Ha9 ot'tco led me wrong.
POBMS.
IT.
Where liumtii wtaimeu hat come thort,
Oifrailiy sfeept aeide^
Do thon, AIL Good I far rach thou art,
In shades of darkaeas hide.
V.
Where with inUmiiam I have err*dy
No other pies I have,
But, Thorn art good ; and goodneu itiU
Delighttth to fbrgive.
STANZAS
ON TUX SAMK OCCASION*.
Why am I loath to leave this earthly scene ?
Have I BO found it full of pleasing charms ?
Some drops of joy with draughts of ill be-
tween:
Some gleams of sundiine 'mid renewed
storms:
Is it departing pangs my soul alarms ;
Or death 8 unlovely, dreary, dark abode ?
For guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms ;
I tremble tu approach an augry Gou,
And justly smart beneath his sin-avenging rod.
Fain would I wy, < Furgive my foul oflfence !*
Fain promise never more to disobey ;
But, should my Author health again dis-
pense.
Again I might desert fnir virtue's way ;
Again in folly's path might go astray ;
Again exalt the brute and sink the man ;
Then how should 1 for heavenly mercy pray,
Who act so counter hcuvcnly mercy's plun ?
Who sin so oft have niourn'd, yet to teiuptutiun
ran?
O Thou, great Governor of <lI1 IhjIow I
If I may dare a lilted e>-c to Tlice,
Thy nod can make the teiiijiest ceaw to
blow.
Or still the tumult of the raging sea ;
With that controlling pow*r avd^t ev'n me.
Those headlong ^rious pas»iuus to con-
fine;
For all unfit I foel my pow'rs to be.
To rale their torrent in th* allowed line !
O aid me with thy help, OmnipoteKce Divine !
LYING AT A aXVXaXND raiXHD*K HOUSE ONE
yiGHT, THE ADTHOft LEFT THE FOLLOWING
VERSES,
I9f TBS BOOM WUXKX HE SLEFT.
O THOU dread Pow'r, who reigii*it above,
I knoir thoB wilt bm hear,
When for thli MBi dr pMM lad hnrc^
I make my prayer sincere.
n.
The hoarjr aire — the mortd alrbki^
Long, long be pleaaed to Wfnt%
To bless his little filial flmk,
And show what good mM !!«•
UL
She, who her lovdy oferinf eyes
With tender hopes and foin,
O bless her with a mother's joys.
But spare a mother's tears !
IV.
Their hope, their stay, their darling yotttl^
In manhood's dawning blush ;
Bless him, thou God of love and tnithf
Up to a parent's wish !
V.
The beauteous, neraph aister-band,
With earnest tears I pray.
Thou know'st the snares on ev'ry hand.
Guide thou their steps alway !
VL
When soon or late they reach that coist.
O'er lifo's rough ocean driv'n.
May they rqoice, no wand'rer loit,
A family in Hcav'n !
THE FIRST PSALM.
Thi: man, in life wherever placed.
Hath happiness in Ntore,
Who walks not in the wicked's way,
Nor learns their guilty lore !
Nor from the sent of scornful pride
Casts forth his eyes abroad,
But with humility and awe
Still walks before hia Qod.
That man ahall flourish like the trees
Which by the Ktreamlets grow ;
The fruitful top is spread on high.
And firm the root below.
But he whose blossom buds in guilt
Shall to the ground be cast^
And, like the rootless stobble, toat
Before the sweeping blast.
For why? that God the good adore
Hath giv'n them peace and rest,
But hath decreed that wicked men
Shall ne'er be truly Uest.
BURNS' WORKS.
A PRAYER,
tME mufv&x or tiolkvt avguisb.
t VBou Great Being ! what thou art
SupuMi BM lo latuw :
Z li ton am I, that knowii to thea
An aU thy wocka below.
thf cnatnre here before thee ttaodt.
All wretched and dbtreet ;
Tat mn thoee 3b that wring my aoul
Obey thy high beheet.
Svre thou. Almighty, cantt not act
Firom cruelty or wrath !
Of firee my weary eyes from tears.
Or dote themfiut in death!
Bnt if I mart afflicted be.
To rait iome wiie dengn ;
Then man my eoul with firm reeolTee,
To bear and not repine.
THK riEST IIX VKESXa OF
THE NINETIETH PSALM.
O THOU, the fint, the greatest Friend
Of all the hnman not !
Whoee itroog right hand hat ever been
Their itay and dwelling place !
Before the moontaini heaved their headi
Beneath thy forming hand,
Before this pond'rona globe itaelf
Aroee at thy command ;
That powV which nit'd, and ttiU upholds'
This universal frame,
Fhim countless, nnbeginning time.
Was ever still the same.
Those mighty periods of years,
Which seem to us so vast,
. Appear no more before thy sight,
Than yesterday that's past.
Thou gav*st the word : Thy creature, man,
Is to existence brought :
Again thou say'nt, * Ye sons of men.
Return ye into nought !*
Thou layest them, with all their cares.
In everlacting sleep ;
At with a flood thou tak'iit them off
With overwhelming sweep.
They flourish like the morning flowV,
In beauty's pride array'd ;
Bat long ere night cut down, it liet
All withered and decay'd.
TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY,
on TUftvura on wnwu wim trs rMO«%
AnuL, 1786.
Wkk, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r,
Thoa*s met me in an evil hour ;
For I maun crash amang the stoore
Thy slender stem ;
To wpan thee now is past my pow'r,
Thou bonnie gem.
Alas ! it*s no thy neebor sweet.
The bonny Xori, companion meet .
Bending thee *mang the dewy wcet !
Wi' spreckl'd breast,
yrhea upward-springing, blithe, to greet
The purpling
Cauld blew Uie bitter-biting north
Upon thy earl/^ humble, birth ;
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth
Amid the storm.
Scarce rear*d above the parent earth
Thy tender form.
The flaunting flow*n our gardens yield.
High shelt'riag woods and wa*» maun ahicld ;
But thou beneath the random bield
O* clod or stane,
Adorns the Imtie ttUMt'^eUy
Pnseen, alane.
There, in thy scanty mantle dad.
Thy soawie bosom sun-ward spread.
Thou lifts thy unassuming head
In humble guise ;
But now the ihare upteAn thy bed.
And low thou lica !
Such is the fate of artless Maid,
Sweet ^overrt of the runl shade !
By love's simplicity betray*d.
And guileless trust,
TiU she, Uke thee, all soilM, is Uid
Low i' the dust.
«
Such is the late of simple lUrd,
On life's rough ocean luckless starr*d,
Unskilful he to note the card
Of prudent lore.
Till billows rage, and gules blow hard.
And whelm him o*er !
Such fate to tuffering worth is giv'n.
Who long with wants and woes has striv*n.
By human pride or cunnii^ driv*n
Ttt nii»*ry*« brink.
Till wrench*d of every stsy but Heaven^
lie, ruin'd, sink !
Ev*n tiiou who mnonrift the Daisy's fol^
That fate it t/tin* — no distant date:
.♦
t
I
L
TBI«i4i*4
FkU ott thy blooaiy
SMtethydPom!
EnsiiiB T&A YDDNOiinttn
— -> rae.
TO RUIN-
ALL haU! inmrablt kri !
AtwhM
Tht mightMit fmirinifiiU !
Thy enwl, woe-dtliglittd tiiia»
Tht BiBMtin of gnef and paioi
A luUen welcome^ all !
With atent-RMilT'cl, deiptiniif aya^
I na ateh ainMd dart ;
Far OBa hM cat my cfaorMt tit,
Atd quhran ia my htart.
Then low luf » aiod powiBy»
Tha iteiw BO ntra I draad ;
The* thiek'niDf and blaeka'iBf*
Bowad my dtvotad hatd.
IL
And dion grim powvr, hy life ahhorr'd,
While life aplaaMTf can a§brd»
Oh! hear a wntdi'a prayer ;
No more I ihrink anaU d, afraid ;
I eowt, I bw thy friadly aid»
To dom |£ia aeana of earn !
When ehaH my aoal* ia alaat patei^
Raeagn life*a jepfaw day ;
lly wear
CoU mmiyvmff in tba day?
No fear mora^ no tear moftb
To atam my Kfelem feoa ;
EadtNMdt tad grmped
~ Witfaa my teid twhaat !
TO MISS L
WITH BIATni*8 FOnU, Afl A inw^TBAm*! OUT,
4AV. 1» 1787.
AoAiv tit ailaat whteb of time
Thdr annual nmpd have drir'n*
And yom tho* aaarea ia aiaidaa prinM^
An eo modi aeartr Hasr'a.
No filb havt I fram ladiaa
'na iafeat ymr to hail ;
I land yoa aatn dum ladSa boaali
la £dmim*$ limpla talt.
Oar eez with gaila and feidilam lora
b diaif'd^ V^^f» *^ ^'^>
Bat amy, dear amid, aaeh lovm prota
Aa Mite Mjll to yoa !
I LAiro haa thoa|^ my
A aomethiaf to hcfo laat yo%
Umi' it ehoold aenra aai td
Than jart a Uad mamtai
Bat how the aahjatt-tiMom
Let time aad alamea determiati ^
Ferhaaa it may tarn oat a
IViii^ tara oat 1
Ya*n try the warld aooa, aiy M
And, Andnw dear, balievo mi^ .
Ye*H find mankind an uneo aqadb
And mudde they may grieta yai
For eare and tronhle eat year
E'ca whan your oad*e atniarf |
An a* yoar riewa may eome to
Where er'iy nenre ia etraiand.
IIL
m BO aay, men are TillainB a* {
The rml, harden*d widceil,
Wha hae aaa ehtek hot humaa Inri
Are to a few reatricted t
Bvt odu mankind art anoo artik^
An* little to bt tnuted;
If aey tht wavering balaaot aUH
Ita rarely right a^iiMiMi i
IV.
Yet they wha fe* infertune'e alilfe
Their fete we ehodd na ceneBi%
For atiU di* t avwrteaf emf of Hfe
They equally may answer;
A man may hae an honeet heart,
Tho' poortith hooriy >tire hfaa;
A man may tak a neebor'a part^
Yet hat aat coal to apare him.
V.
Aye five aff haa' yoor itory teO^
When wi' a boeom crony ;
Bot etiU keep eomethfaig to yoandT
Ye eeareely tdl to oay.
Goneed yoorad* m wtdli ye eta
Firat criticd diaeection ;
Bot kedc thro* every other maat
Wi' iharpaa'd aly inapeetaoa.
VI.
TIm atered lowto* wtal-plac'd \m%
Lnzariantly indnlge it ;
But never tanpt th' iBkii rom,
Tho* aatdkiag dmold divu%t III
I wave the quantam o' the 82%
The haiard of oaaoealiag }
Bot odi ! it hardena a* wMua*
And pelrifim tht fealiaf !
vn.
To eatdi daam Fortaaa'a gald«
/
|4ai fiA« fttr liv trVf wiU
lliat't jnraM oy liooonr ;
Not fcr to hidt it in a badges
Nor for a train-attendant ;
B«t for tha gloriona privilega
Ofl
BDRM8' WORKS.
vnL
Hie fear o* heU'a a hangman's whip
To hand tha wretch in ofdar ;
Bat where ya feel your Aomomt grip,
Let that aye be your border x
Its iUghtett tottcheBy inatant panae—
Debar a* tide pretences ;
And reaolntely keep its Uw%
Uncaring eoaseqnenoes.
IX.
The great Creator to rerere^
Must sura become the crtaturt ;
But still the preaching cant forbear,
And enr'n the rigid feature :
Tet ne'er with wits profene to range,
Be complaisance extended ;
An Atheist's laugh's a poor exchange
For Deity ofinded !
When ranting round in pleasure's nog.
Religion may be blinded ;
Or, if she gie a ramdom ting.
It may be little minded :
But when on life we're tempest-dri^'n,
A conscience but a canker —
A eorrespondence fix*d wi* Heav'n,
Is sure a noble oaehor*
XL
Adieu, dear, amiable vouth !
Your heart can ne er be wanting :
May prudence, fortitude, and truth.
Erect your brow undaunting !
In ploughman phrase, ' God send you ^wed,'
Still daily to grow wiser ;
A«m1 may you better reck the recb,
Than ever did th* adviser !
ON A SCOTCH BARD,
GONE TO THE WEST INDIES.
A* TE wha live by soups o* drink,
A* ye wha live by crambo-cliuk,
A' ye wha live and never think,
Come nuini n wi* me !
Our M2Ke'« gi*en us a* a jink,
An* owre the sea.
Lament him a* ye rantin core,
Wha dearly like a random-«plore,
Hae mair ball join the merry roart
Jnaodalkcy;
For now ha*!B ta'co anitherahon,
An' owre the
The bonnie lassies wed may wiss him,
And in their desr petitions place him i
The widows, wives, an* a* may bless him,
Wi* tearfo' e*e ;
For wed I wat they*Il sairly miss him.
That's owre the
O Fortune, they ha*e room to grumble !
Hadst thou ta'en aff some drowsy bummd*
Wha can do nought but fyke an* fumblsb
*Twwl been nae plea
But he was gleg aa ony wumUe,
That's owre tha sea.
Auld, cantie Kyk may weepers wcw,
An* stain them wi' the aautf aant tear ;
Twill mak* her poor auld heart, I fear.
In flinders flee ;
He was her hmreat monie a year,
That*a owre the aea«
He s;w misfortnne'a canld nor^wati
Lang mustering up a bitter blast ;
A jillet brak* his heart at last,
HI may aha be !
So, took a birth afore the maat.
An' own tha
To tremble under Fortnne'a rummook,
On scarce a bellyfo' o' drummoek,
Wi* his proud, independent stomach
Gould ill agree;
So, row't his hurdiea in a kamimoei.
An* owre the aea.
He ne'er waa gi*en to great miaguiding,
Yet coin hu pouches wad na bide in ;
Wi* him it ne*er waa under hiding t
He dealt it free :
The muse was a* that he took pride in.
That's owre the
Jamaica ho^Kes, use him weel.
An* hap him in a coxie bid ;
Ye'li find him aye a dainty chid.
And fu' o* glee :
He wailna wrang'd the veradcil,
That's owre the sea.
Fareweel, my rhyme-composing hillie t
Your imtivo will was right ill-willie ;
Hut uiuv \e flonrifrh like a liiv,
Now bonnilic ;
I'll toast ye in my hindmost gillie,
Tho' owre the sea.
TO A HAGGIS.
Fair fa' your honest, aonsie face.
Great chieftain o' the poddin-race 1
POEMS.
#1
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tri|M;} or thairm
Weel are ye wordy of a grace
As laDg*« my arm.
The groaning trencher there ye fill.
Your hurdiea like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o* need,
While thro' your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.
His kni£e see rustic labour dight,
An* cut you up wi* ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
^ Like onie ditch ;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin', rich !
Then horn for horn they stretch an* strive,
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive.
Till a* their weel-awall'd kytes belyve
Are bent like drums ;
Then auld guidman, maist like to ryve,
JBethankit hums.
Is there that o*er his French ragout.
Or olio that wad staw a sow.
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi' perfect sconner,
Looks down wi* sneering, scomfu* view,
On sic a dinner ?
Poor devil ! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as a wither'd rash,
His spindle-ahank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit ;
Thro* bloody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit !
But mark the rustic, haggis-fed^
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He*U make it whissle ;
An* legs, an* arms, an heads will sued.
Like taps o* thrissle.
Ye Pow*rs wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o* fare,
Auld Scotland wants na skinking ware
That jaups in luggies ;
But, if y« wish her gratefu* prayV,
Gie her a Haggis I
A DEDICATION.
TO GAVIN HAMILTON, ESQ.
Expect na, Sir, in this narration,
A fleechin, fleth'rio dedication,
To rcKwe you up, an* ca* you guid.
An' sprung o* greit an' nohle bluiJ,
Because ye're surnamed like his grace,
Perhaps related to the race ;
Then when I*m tired — and Rie arc ye,
Wi* mony a fulsome, sinfu* lie.
Set up a face, how I stop shurt.
For fear your modesty be hurt.
This may do — maun do. Sir, wi' them wbt
Maun please the great folk for a wamefu* i
For me ! sae laigh I ncedna bow.
For, Lord be thankit, / can plough ;
And when I downa yoke a naig,
Then, Lord be thankit, / can beg ;
Sae I shall say, and that's nae flatt'rin',
It's just stc pioet an* sic patron.
The Poet, some guid angel help him.
Or else, I fear some ill ane skelp him ;
He may do weel for a* he*s done yet.
But only he's no just begun yet.
The Patron, ( Sir, ye maun forgie me^
I winna lie, come what will o* me)
On ev'ry hand it will allowed be,
He's just — nae better than he should be.
I readily and freely grant.
He downa see a poor man want ;
What's no his ain he winna tak it.
What ance he says he winna break it ;
Ought he can lend he'll no refuse*
Till aft his goodness is abused ;
And rascals whyles that do him wrang,
Ev'n thatt he does na mind it lang ;
As master, landlord, husband, fiither
He does na fail his part in either.
But then, nae thanks to him for a* that %
Nae godly symptom ye can ca* that ;
It's naething but a milder feature.
Of our poor, sinfu' corrupt nature :
Ye* 11 get the best o* moral works,
'i\Iang black Grentoos and pagan Turks,
Or hunters wild on Ponotaxi,
Wha never heard of orthodoxy.
That he's the poor man's friend in need.
The gentleman in word and deed,
It*s no thro* terror of danmation ;
It's just a carnal inclination.
Morality, thou deadly bane.
Thy tens o* thousands thou hast skin !
Vain is his hope, whose stay and trust is
In moral mercy, truth, and justice '
No — stretch a point to catch a plack ;
-Abuiie a brother to his brick ;
Stcil thro' a winnock frae a wh— re.
But point the rake that taks the door :
Be to tltf poor like onie whunstane.
And baud their noses to the grunstane ;
Ply ev*ry art o* legal thieving ;
No matter, stick to sound believing.
Learn thrcp mile pray'r*, an* half-mile graee%
Wi' \vcel-««j)ix»id looves, an' lang wry f.iccs ;
Grunt up a j-olt-ran, lengthen'd groan,
And daxDu a' parties but your own ;
26
«s
BURNS' WORKS.
rO wtfrait tlMB, ye*rt me daeeSTcr,
A tlMdy, ■tardy, ttaiiiich
O ye wb4 lesre the fpiiogi of Cahinf
Vat pamUt ibA» of your ain ddvin !
To WHO of heresy aod error,
To'U iome day tqaeel in quaking terror !
When rengeanoe draws the sword in wrath,
And in the fire throws the sheath ;
When rntn, with his sweeping 6esoiii,
Jnst frets till Heaven commission gies him :
-While o'er the harp pale Misery moans,
And strikes the everndeep'ning tones,
Still kmder shrieks, and heavier groans !
Yoor pardon, Sir, for this digression,
I naist iorgat my dedication ;
Bit when divinity oome« crowi me,
Mj roidcn still are sure to lose me.
So, Sir, ye see 'twas nae daft vapour,
Bsft I maturely thought it proper.
When a* my works 1 did review.
To dedicate them. Sir, to You .*
Bteauae (ye need na tak it ill)
I thought them something like yoursel'.
Then patronise them wi' your favour,
And yoor petitioner shall ever —
I had amaist said ever pray.
But that's a word I need na say :
For prayin* I hae little skill o't ;
rm oaith dead-sweer, an* wretched ill o't ;
But I'se repeat each poor man's pray*rt
That kens or hears about you, Sir —
** May ne'er misfortune's gowling bark.
Howl thro' the dwelling o' the Clerk I
May ne'er his gen'rous, honest heart.
For that same grn'rous spirit smart !
Hay K *s far hoDOur'd name
Lang beet his hymeneal flame,
Till H. s, at lea«t a dixen,
Are firae her nuptial labours risen :
Five bonnie lassies round their table,
And seven braw fellows, stout an' able
To serve their king and country weel.
By word, or pen, or pointed steel !
May health and peace, with mutual raji.
Shine on the evening o' his days ;
• Till his wee curlie John*M ier-oe,
When ebbing life nae mair shall flow.
The last, sad, mournful rites bestow !"
I will not wind a long conclusion,
Wi' complimentary effusion ;
But whiUt your wishes aod endeavours
Are blest with Fortune's smiles and &vours,
I am, dear Sir, with seal most fervent.
Your much indebted, humble servant.
But if (which Pow'rs above prevent !)
That iron-hearted carl. Want,
Attended in his grim advances.
By sad mistikes, and black mischanccty
Whila hopci, and ioyi, aad plaMuna iy hbh
Make you M poor a dof M I tm,
Yoor hmmbU ttrvemt £ea do mon ;
For who woold hnmUy serve the poor !
But, by a poor man's hopes in Heavm !
While recAectkm's powvr is given.
If, in the vile of hnmbU lile.
The victim sad of fortune's strife,
I, thro' the tender gashing tear.
Should reeogniie my moifer dear.
If friendless, low, we meet together.
Then, Sir, your hand— my /nentf amd hroAer t
TO A LOUSE
OV SKXIVG OVK OV A LADt's BONITR AT
CHUECH.
Ha ! whare ye gann, ye crowlin*
Your impudence protects jrou sairly :
I canna say bat ye stmnt rardy,
Owregauwand lace;
Tho' foith, I fear ye dine but sparely
Onaicaplaoe.
Ye ugly, creepin', blastit wonner.
Detested, shunn'd by aaunt an* sinner.
How dare jrou set jrour fit npon her,
Sae fine a kuly !
Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner.
On aoBM poor body.
Swith, in some beggar's haflet sqnattle ;
There ye may creep, and sprawl, and spratde
Wi' ither kindred, jumpin' cattle^
In shoals and nations;
Whare horn nor home ne'er dare nnsettle
Yoor thick plantations.
Now hand you there^ ye're oat o' eigh^
Below the fatt'rils, snug and tight :
Na, foith ye yet ! ye'U no be right
Till ^'ve got oa it.
The vera tapmoet, tow'nng he^ht
O' Jfut't bOMMf .
My sooth ! right banid ye oet yoor aoie onl^
As plump and grey as ony groaet ;
0 for eome rank, mercurial rooet,
Or fell, red siBoddam«
I'd gi'e you sic a hearty doee o't.
Wad drees yoor droddam !
1 wad na been surprised to vpf
You on an auld wife's flannen toy ;
Or aiblins some bit duddie boy,
On's wylieooat ;
But Miss's fine Lunardie I f&e.
How dare ye do't !
O, Jenny f dinna toes your head.
An' set your beauties a' abroad !
Ye little ken what cursed speed
llMblaatie'inakia'l
POEMS.
ThM wink* und Jinffer-ends, I dread,
Ar« notice takin* !
O wad Bome power the giftie gie ua
To see otirieh ae othere eee n* I
It wad frae monie a blunder free as*
And fiodith notion :
yfhaX airs in dreia an* gait wad lea*e us,
And ev*n Derotion !
ADDRESS TO EDINBURGH.
Edina ! Scotia* e darling aeat !
All hail thy palaces and towera,
Where once beneath a monarch's feet
Sat legislation*! aovereign paw*r» !
From marking wildljr-icatter'd flow*ri,
Aa on the banks of Ayr I stray*d,
And singing, lone, the ling'ring hours,
J shelter in thy honoured shade.
11.
Here wealth still swells the golden tide.
As busy trade his labours plies ;
There architecture's noble pride
Bids elegance and splendour rise ;
Here juaticts from her native skies,
High wields her balance and her rod ;
There learning, with his eagle eyes,
Seeks science in her coy abode.
III.
Thy sons, Edina, social, kind.
With open arms the stranger hail ;
Their views enlarged, their liberal mind,
Above the narrow, rural rale ;
Attentive still to sorrow's wail.
Or modest merit'a silent claim ;
And never may their sources fail !
And never envy blot their name.
IV.
Thy daughters bright thy walks adorn !
Gay as the gilded summer sky.
Sweet as the dewy milk>white thorn.
Dear as the raptured thrill of joy !
Fair Burnet strikes th* adoring eye.
Heaven s beauties on my &ney shine :
I see the sire of love on kight
And own hu work indeed divine !
V.
There, watching high the least alarms.
Thy rough rude fortress gleams a£ur ;
Like some bold veteran, grey in arms.
And mark'd with many a seamy scar :
The pon*drous wall and massy bar.
Grim-rising o*er the rugged rock ;
Have oft witbitood assailing war,
And oft repdl'd (he inrider*! ihock*
VL
With awe-struck thought, and pitying tearsy
I view that nobk, statdy dome.
Where Seotia*M kings of other years.
Famed heroes, had their royal home.
Alas ! how changed the times to come !
Their royal name low in the dust !
Their hapless race wi]d-wand*rittg roam !
Tho* rigid law cries ont^ 'twia just !
vn.
Wild beats my heart to trace yovr ttepe.
Whose ancestor! in days of jan.
Thro* hostile ranks and min*d gapa
Old Scoiia*» bloody lion bore i
E'en / who sing in rustie lore,
Haply my »ire$ have left thair ahadf
And fioed grim danger's loudeat roar,
Bold-following where yomr fiithers kd !
VIIL
EoixA ! Scotia*M darling seat !
All hail thy palaoea and tow'ra,
\l'here oure beneath a moiiarch*s feet
Sat lrgislation*s sov'reign pow'ra !
From marking wildly-scatter d flow*r%
As on the banks of Ayr I stray'd.
And singing, lone, the ling'ring hoiu%
I shelter'd in thy honour'd shade.
EPISTLE TO J. LAPRAIK,
AX OLD SCOTTISH BAEDy AFUL Is^ 17M*
While briers an* woodbines boddiiy P*>Bf
An* paitricks acraichin lond at e*en.
An* morning pooasie whiddin aeen.
Inspire my mnse^
This freedom in an unknown frien'
I pray excuse.
On &sten-eea we had a rockin*,
To ca* the crack and weave our stockin* ;
And there waa mnckle fan and jokin*.
Ye need ua doubt :
At length we had a hearty yokin*
At aang about.
There was ae eany amang the rest,
Aboon them a' it pleased me best.
That some kind husband had addrest
To some sweet wife :
It thirl'd the heart-strings thro* the breas^
A' to the life.
I've scarce heard ooght described sae-wed.
What gen'rons, manly bosoms feel ;
Thought I, < Can this be Pope, or Steele,
OrBeattie'awark?*
They tald me 'twu an odd kind chiel
About Muirkirkm
It pat me fidgin-fiun to hear't.
And iM aboiil kin dicrt I ipkr^
44
BURNS' WORKS.
Tlion a* that Vjtiit hiui itmiiii declared
He had i'ii^i'ii«.
That naae exi-uird It, feir mob near*t,
It wtm ue fine.
That wt him to a pint of ah,
An* either doucse or tneny tale.
Or rhymes an* vanj^ii hc*d made himael*}
Or witty catches,
'Tureen Inverness and Teviotdale^
He had few matclies.
Then up 1 gat, an* swoor an aith,
Tho* I should pawn my pleugh an* graith,
Or die a cadger pownie's death.
At some dyke back,
A pint on* gill I*d gie them baith
To hear your crack.
But. first an* foremost, I should tell,
Amaiit as soon as I could spell,
1 to the crambO'jingU ivll,
Tho' ru<Ie and rough,
Yet crooning to a body*s sel*
Does weel eneugh.
I am noe poti^ in a senitc,
But just a rhgmer, like, by chance,
An* hae to learning nae pretence.
Yet, what the matter ?
Whene'er my um^c does on me glance,
I jingle at her.
Your critic folk may cock their nose.
And suy, * How can you e*er propose^
Yun wha ken hardly vene frae pnMf,
To mak a umg ?*
But, by your leaves, my learned foes,
Ye*re may be wrang.
What's a* your jargon o* your schools,
Ynur Latin names fur horns an* stools ;
If honest nature made you /iWs,
What sairs your gramrnarx ?
Ye'd better taeu up spades and shook,
Or knappin-hammers.
A set o* dull conoeited hashes.
Confuse their brains in college clashes !
They gang iu stirks, and come out asses,
Phun truth to speak ;
An* syne they think to dimb Parnassus
By dint o* Greek !
Gie me ae spark o' Nature's fire !
That's a' the learning I desire ;
ThM tho' I drudge Siro* dub an' mire
At plengh or etrt,
My mrne^ thoogh hamely in attire.
May touch the heart.
O for a Ppnnk o' AHan't glee.
Or Ferguaon*», the bauld and slee.
Or bright Lapraik*», my friend to bs^
iflMkitiil
That would be Icar cn<>ugh fi)r tat f
If I cook! get it.
Now, Sir, If y« hae fnends enow,
Tho' real friends, I b'lieve are few.
Yet, if your eatalogne be fim,
I'se no insist,
But gif ye want ae friend that*s true,
I'm on your list.
I winna blaw about mysel ;
As ill I like my &ults to tell ;
But friends, and folk that wish me well,
They sometimes roose me ;
Tho' I maun own, as monie still
As far abuje me.
There's sc wee font they whyles lay to ms,
I like the Ume» — Guid fbrgie me !
For monie a plack they wheedle frae me.
At dance or fiiir ;
.Afay be some itfier thin*/ they gie me
They weel can K)Nire.
liiit MtuiehUne race, or Mavchliuc fair,
I sliuuld bo })ruu«l tt» meet you there ;
We'»e gie at* night's di^ichar^ to c^ie,
If we forgather.
An' hae a sriap o' rh^lmng^ware
Wi* ane anither.
The four-gill chap, we'se gsr him clatter.
An* kirsen him wi' reekin* water ;
Syne we*ll sit down an* tak our whitter.
To cheer our heart ;
An' faith we'se be ar^^uainted better
Before we part.
Awa ye selfish warly race,
Wha think that bavins, sense, an' graee,
Ev'n love and friendship, shooki give place
To eatek the plaei /
I dinna likv to see yoar free^
Nor hear foar craek.
But ye whom social pleasure charms,
Wliose hearts the tide of kindness warms,
WIto hoki your being on tha term^
< Each aid tha othen,*
Come to my bowl, eoaia to oiy arms.
My fiiandi, any brochws !
But, to conclude my lang apittle,
As my auld pen's worn to the grisde ;
Twa lines frae yon wad gar ma fksle^
Who am, most fervent,
While I can either sing, or whissle,
Yoor friettd and aenraat.
POKUB.
ifr*
TO THE SAME.
▲rmiL 21, 1785.
While Dew-ea*d ky« root it the slake,
An* powniei reek in pleugli or brake.
This hour on e*cnin*s edge I take,
To own I'm debtor
To honeeUhearted auld Lapraik
For hi* kind letter.
Foijedcet lair, with wcnry lege,
Rattlin* the eom out-owre the rige,
Or dealing thro' amang the naigs
Their ten houri bilt,
My awkart moae sair pleads and begs,
I would na write.
The tapetleis ramfieeil'd hiaie,
She*« saft at beat, and aomothing laiy.
Quo* ahe, < Ye ken, we've been lae buajr,
Thia month an' mair.
That trottth my head is grown right dinie,
An' aomething aair.*
Her dowff ocnasa pat me mad ;
* Coiucience,' says I, < ye thowless jad !
ru write, an' that a hMrty bland,
Thia Tera night ;
So dinna ye affront yonr trade.
But liiyme it right.
* Shall baukl Lapndky the king o* hMrta,
Tho* mankind were a pack o* eartes,
Roose you aae weel for yonr deserts,
In terms sae friendly.
Yet ye'n neglect to shaw yonr parts.
An' thank him kindly !*
Sae I gat paper in a blink.
An* down gaed atmmpU in the ink :
Quoth I, * Before I sleep a wink,
I row 1*11 close it ;
An* if ye winna msk' it clink.
By Jove ru prose it!'
Sae I've begvn to scrawl, but whether
Id rhyme, or prose, or buth thegither.
Or some hotch-potch that's rightly neither.
Let time mak proof;
But I shall scribble down some blether
Just clean aff looi^
m
My worthy friend, ne'er grudge an* carp
Tho* fortune nae you hard an' sharp ;
Come, kittle up your moorioJidf Aaxp
Wi' glecsome touch ?
^e'er mind how Fortune waft and wttrp ;
She's but a b-toh.
She's gien me monie a jirt and flcg.
Sin* I could itriddle owre a rig ;
Bot, by the L-^l^ tho' I ahookl bq;,
m langh, an* iing^ ia* ahake mj kg »
As lang's I dow !
Now eoBMS the ms and twentieth simmer,
rve seen the bod npo* the timmer.
Still persecuted by the limmer,
Frae year to ynr ;
But yet, despite the kittle kinunrr^
/, IMt, am here;
Do ye envy the city Oent,
Behint a kist to lie and sklen^
Or purse-prond, big wi* cent, per
And mncUe
In some bit brugh to lepiestut
ABotH/tname?
Or is't the panghty foodal thane^
Wi' ruffled sark and glancin* cane,
Wha thinks himself nse sheep-shank haii%
Bot kirdly stelks,
While caps an' bonnets iff are taen, ^^
Aa by he walla ?
* O Thou wha gics ns each guid gift !
Qie me o' wit and sense a lift.
Then turn me, if TlUm please, adrift
Thro* Scotland wide :
Wi* cite nor lairds I wadna shift.
In a' their pride !'
Were this the churier of our state,
* On pain o* hell be rich and great,*
Damnation then wouM be cmr fate.
Beyond remead;
Bat, thanks to Heav'n ! that*a no the gale
We learn our creed.
For thus the n^al mandate ran,
When first the human race began,
' The social, friendly, htrnest man,
Whate*er he be,
'Ti« he fulfils srrtai Nctur**a jdath
An' none but he P
O mandate glorioua and divine !
The ra^pad followers o* the Nine,
Poor, thoughtless devib ! yet may ahina
In glorious light.
While sordid sons of Mammon'a line
Are dark aa night
Tho' here they aenpe, an' squecie, an* fjviA^
Their worthlem nieve^' o' a aoul
May in some future carcaae howl
The forest's fright ;
Or in some day-detestiog owl
May shun the light
Then may Lapraik and Bwm» ariae^
To reach their native, kindred skies,
And ting their pleasures, hopes^ and joyib
In some mild sphei%
Still closer knit in friendship's tics,
£aeh itasiiftf vear.
BURNS' WORKS.
TO W. S.
•N,
OCWLTftKli
J£iyl7B6.
t OAT your letter, winmiie WUUt :
Wi* fntaAi' hftart I thank yov bnwiie ;
TW I maiiB mfU I wad be iflly;
An' nneo rain,
Shoold I beliere^ my coaxin' biUie,
Yonr flattetin' atraia.
But Tie bclieTe fa kindly meant it,
I and be laitk to think ye hii
Iranie aatirey
ye hinted
•klented
On my poor motie ;
Tho* in aie phraiain* terms ye*?e penn*d i^
I scarce cxcuae ye.
Uy aenaea wad be in a creel,
Bkonld I but dare a hop* to sped,
Wr MUm or wi* GUbertfidd,
The braes of &me ;
Or PcryMon, the writer chiel,
A deathleaa name.
(O FtrguMon I thy glorioua parts
in snitsd law*B dry, musty arts !
Ify corse upon your whunstane hearts,
Ye E'nbrugh Gentry !
TIm tithe o* what ye waste at cartes.
Wad stow'd his pantry !)
Yet when a tale comes i* my head.
Or laases gic my heart a screed.
As whyks they're like to be ray dead,
(Oaaddiaeaae!)
I kittle vp my mafic reed ;
Itgiea me ease.
Anld CoUa now may fidge fa* £un, ,
8ha*a gotten poeta o* her ain,
Gbiala wha their chanters winna hain.
Bat tune their lays,
Tin echoes a' resound again
Her weel-aang praise.
Nae poet thought her worth his whiles
To set her name in measured style ;
She lay like lome unkenncd of isle
Beside Newf-Hothndf
Or whare wild-meetii^ ooeana boil
BMOttth MofftOan,
Ramsay an* famooa Ferpwaon
Oied Forth an* Tay a lift aboon ;
Yarrow an* Tweed to monie a tune,
Owre Scotland ring%
While Jrwtn, Lvgar^ Ayr, an* Doom,
Nae body sings.
Th' JMm, Tiber, Thames, an' Seine,
CnUft aweet in monie a tunefa' line !
Bat^ Willie, set your fit to mine,
An' cock yoar citi^
We'll gar our iircama and bumSes iLiile
Up wi* the best.
We*ll sing auld CoOa's plains an* fells,
Her moors red> brown wi' heather bells.
Her banks an* braes, her dens an' dells.
Where gk)rious WaUae$
Aft bure the gree, as story tells,
Frae aouthem billica*
At WaOaee* name what ScoUiah blood
Bot boils up in a apring^tide flood 1
Oft hare our fcarleaa £uhers strode
By Wallaes' side,
Stin pressing onward, red-wat shod.
Or glorious died.
O aweet are Coila*s hanghs an' wood%
When lintwhites chant among the bods,
An' jinldn hares, in amoroua whids.
Their lores enjoy.
While thro* the braes the cushat crooda
With wailfa' cry !
Ev'n winter bleak haa charma to me
When winds rave thro' the naked tree ;
Or firoat on hiUa of OehiUrte
Are hoary grey;
Or Uindmg drifts wild-furious flee^
Dark'ning the day !
O Nahirt I a* thy shows an' forma
To feeling, p^aire hearta hae charms !
Whether die aommer kindly wanna
Wi' life an* light.
Or winter howla, in gnsty storms.
The lang, dark night !
The Muse, nae poet erer fend her.
Till by himsel he leam'd to wander,
Adown aome trotting bum'a meander.
An' no think lang ;
O sweet, to stray, an' penaiTe ponder
A heartfelt aang !
The warly race may drudge and drire^
Hog-ahouthcr, jundie^ stretch, an' strire^
Let me feir Nahar^s fece describe.
And I, wi' pleaaure^
83kall let the busy, grumbling hive
Bum o'er their treaaare.
Fareweel, ' my rhyme-«ompoaing brithcr T
We've been owre laug unkenn d to ithcr :
Now let ua lay oor heads thegither,
In love fraternal :
Biay Envy wallop in a tether,
BUck fiend, infernal !
While highlandmen hate tolb and
White moorlan' hoda like guid fet
While terra firma on her axia
Diurnal tuma.
Count on a friend, in feith and practice^
iA Bobeii Bitms^
POiUd.
0
fO&tSCBXPT.
ter memoiy's no worth a preen ;
I bad unaitt forgotten deaoy
Te bide me write you wbat they meta
By this iie«!4^Ai;*
*Bont which onr kgrdt lae aft hae bMB
Maiat like to fight.
In days when mankind were bnt caUant
At gramwuar, loffie, an* sic talents,
They took nae paina their speech to baleat%
Or nlss to gi*i^
Bat tpak their thoogbts in plain braid liUam^
Like yon or me.
la tbae aald times, they tbovght the
Just like a sark, or pair a iboon.
Wore by degrees^ till her last rooo,
Oaed peat their viavii^
An* shortly after she was dooe^
They gat a new aati
This past lor eertaio, andbpnted ;
It ne*er cam i* their hnds to donbC it,
Till chieb gat up an* wad eonfbte it.
An* ea*d it wra^ ;
An* mackle din there waa abont it,
Baith fend an' lang.
Some kgrdM, wcel leam'd vpo' the beah^
Wsd threap auM folk the thine misteak;
For 'twa* the auld moon tnm d a neuk.
An* out o* Mghtf
An' backlins-comin', to the lenkf
She grew mair bright
This was deny'd, it was afirm*d ;
The k«rd» and Jioeb were alarm'd ;
The fcT'md grey-beards rar*d an* atorm*d^
That beaidlem hMidiee.
Should Aink they bader ware Mfiwm'd
Than their anid dadiJBfc
Frae lem to mair it gaad to sticks ;
Frae words an' aitha to efenrs an* nicks ;
An* monie a fidfew |^ hb lielcH
wi* hearty emnt ;
An* some^ to learn them §ar their tricks,
Were hang*d an* brint
This game was play*d in monie land%
An' aM-ligkt caddies bare sic hands.
That £uth, the yonnnlers took the saiid%
wi* nimble shanka.
Till lairds forbade, by strict commands.
Sic bluidy pranks.
Bat u§ic-lighi herds gat sic a eows^
Folk thoQght them min'd atick-an*-etowe^
Till now amaist on er'ry knowe^
Ye*ll find ana plae'd;
• SeeHols^pbH
An* fOBii^ dMir nmVgkt iur tVMr,
Just qnito barefre'd.
Nae doubt the mdd4iflii Jloeh are bicalin' }
Their aealous herds ars Tex*d an' sweataa' ;
Bflysel, L^t9 eran seen them gicaiin
Wi* gimin' spits^
To hear the moon see sad^ lie'd on
By word an* write.
But shortly they will eowe the hnuia !
Some aMld4ight herds in neebor towne
Are mind't, in things they ca* haBocmt,
To tdc* a flight.
An' staya month amang the
An^sae
nam nght*
Quid obeenration they wiH gie them ;
An* when the auU moon*« gaun to ]ea*e
The hindmoat shaiid, tlMy*n fctch it wi*
Just i* their poad^
An* when the nm-Mgkt biUiee sea theeo,
I think they'U crooch !
See, ya obaenra that a* thb datlar
Is naething bnt a * aMonahine matter;*
But tha' dnU prosa4blk Latin splattar
In logic taUa,
I hope^ we bardiii ken aome better
Than mind siebmkiai
EPISTLB TO J. RANKINE,
XVCLOSING SOS» VOIMa.
O nouoH, mde^ ready-witted lUnkiae^
The wale o* coeka lor fun and drinkin* !
There's moay godly fidks ars thinkin*,
Your rfuHwi * an' tricka
Win send yoo, KorahJike, a^inkin',
Straight to auld Ni^*8.
Ye ha*e see monie cracks an* eanta
And in tout wicked, dnicken rants,
Ya mak' a deril o* the sannts.
An* fin them ton ;
And then their &fling% flaws, an' wants,
Are a* seen thro*.
Hypocrisy, in mercy spare it !
That hohr robe^ O dinna tear it !
^trtt for their sakea wha aften wear it^
ThehMbinftfadk/
Bot yonr corst wit^ when it eomea near it^
RiYes*taff their back.
Think, wicked ainner, wha ye*re skaidii^y
It*s just the hlme-gown badge an' daithing
O* munts ; tak that, ye We them naethiiy
To ken them by,
BUENB* WORKS.
Vrm ooy imrfg«Btfite lictUioi
Like 3ron or L
IVe wnt y<m here tome rhyming ware,
A' thet I bargain'd for en' mair ;
Stm, when you hae an hour to Bpare,'
I will expect
Yon MM^y* ye*n aen't wl* cannie care.
And DO neglect.
Tho' fidth, ima' heart hae I to sing !
My mnie dofw learoely ipread her wing !
IVe play*d myid a bouiie apring.
An* danc*d my fill !
rd better gwn and aair'd the king
At Bunker's Hitt.
^TwMM ae night latdy in my fun,
I gaed a nmng wi' the gun,
An* broi^t a paiiridk to the grun,
A boonie hen,
Aod| aa the twilight wm b^gun,
TluMiht nane wad ken.
The poor wee thing waa little hurt ;
I ttraikit it a wee far eport^
Ne'er thinkiQ' dkey wad hth me lbr*t ;
Bttty deil-ma care !
Somebody teUa the jMocAer-oovrf
The hale affiur.
Some anld ua*d hands had ta'en a note,
That lie a hen had got a ahot ;
I waa luipected for the plot ;
I Boom*d to lie ;
So frt lb* wbUk o' my gioat^
An pay*t the/e*.
But, by my gun, o* guns the wale,
An* by my pouther an* my hail.
An* by my hfcn, an* by ha tail,
J row an' awear !
Thi ^ome ahall pay o*er moor an* dale.
For thai, nieit year.
As floon*8 the dockia' time it by,
An* the wee pouts begun to cry,
h — d, I*8e hae aportin* by aa* by.
For my gowd guinea :
Tho* I shottkl herd the huekskin kye
For'fey in Virginia.
Trowth, they had meikle for to blame !
*Twa]i neither broken wing nor limb.
But twa-three drapa about the wame.
Scarce thro' the foathan}
An* baith a ydlow George to claim.
An' thole their Uethcnl
It pit^ me aye as mairs a hare ;
So I can rhyme nor write nae mair,
But pennjfwortks again in £iir,
When time's expedient :
licanwhile I am, respected Sir,
Your most obedient.
Ill
FRIARS CARSE HERMITAGE;
ov mTH-eiDc
Thou wham chance may hither lead.
Be thou dad in maset weed.
Be thou dedct in rilken stole.
Grave these counsels on thy souL
• A naff he had promlied the AuUmt,
ia but a day at moat.
Sprung from niyh^ in darknesa lost ;
Hope not auoihme erery hour,
Fear not clouds will always lour.
As youth and lore with sprightly dance,
Beneath thy morning star advance,
Pleasure with her siren air
May delude the thoughtless pair ;
Let prudence bless enjoyment's cup.
Then raptur'd sip, and aip it up.
As thy day grows warm and high,
Life's meridian flaming nigh.
Dost thou spurn the hnmUe rale ?
Life's proud summits wouldst thou scale ?
Check thy climbing step, eUte,
Evils lurk in felon wait :
Dangers, eogle-piuion'd, bold,
Soar around each cli£^ hold.
While cheerful peace, with linnet aong,
Chants die kw^ ddls among.
As the shades of ev'ning closer
Beck'ning thee to long repose :
As life itwlf becomea disease.
Seek the chimney-neuk of ease.
There ruminate with sober thought.
On an thou'st seen, and heard, and wrought
And teaeh the sportive younker's round.
Saws of esperienoe, sage Mid aouad.
Say, man's true, gcmiine estimate,
The grand criterion of hia &te,
Is not. Art thou high er Ww f
Did thy fortune ebb or flofw?
Did many talents gild diy apan ?
Or frugal nature gmdge tiKe one ?
Tell them, and press it on their mind.
As thou thyaelf must shortly find.
The smile or fivwn of awfol Heav'n,
To virtue or to vice is giv'n.
Say, to be just, and kind, and wiae^
There solid self-enjoyment lies ;
That foolish, sdfid^ feithless ways.
Lead to the wretched, vile, and base.
Thus resign'd and quiet, creep
To the bed ci lasting sleep ;
Sleep, whence thou shalt ne'er awak%
Night, where dawn shall never break.
Till future life, future no more.
To light and ioy the good restore,
To light and yj vakaowu bcfote.
POBM&
Stranger, go ! Hetv*n he tby guide I
Qaod the beadsman of Nitb-«de.
ODE,
S ACRID TO THE MKMOET OF KM. — — OF —
Dweller in yon dungeon dark»
Hauginan of creation ! mark
Who ia widow-weeds appean.
Laden with unhonoured yean,
NooHing with care a bursting pnne^
Baited with many a deadly curae !
STROPHE.
View the withered beldam's face—
Cin tliy keen inspection trace
Aught of humanity's sweet meltii^ grtoe?
Not that eye, 'tis rheum o'erflowa,
Pity's flood there never rose
S<?e those hands, ne'er stretched to wm,
H.iods that took — ^but never gave.
Keeper of Mammon's iron chest,
Lo, there she goes, unpitied, and unblest ;
She goes, but not to reahns of everlaatiog tnt !
AirrisTRom.
Plunderer of armies, lift thine eya,
{ A while forbear, ye tort'ring fiends),
Seesc thou whose step nnwilQng hither benda ?
No fallen angel, hurl'd from upper akiei ; ,
'Tik thy trusty quondam nuUep
Doonrd to sliare thy fiery fate^
She, tardy, hell-ward pliei.
KTODK.
And are they of no more aToil,
Ten thousand glitt'ring pounds a-year ?
In other worlds can Mammon fail^
Omnipotent as he is here ?
O, bitter mock'ry of the pompous hietf
While down the wretched vital part is driven !
The cave-lodg'd beggar, with a conacienoe cletr»
IHxpires in rags, uaknovn, and goca to HeaT*ii.
Haul ihee hime Id Ue blade Myfi%
OV bvrclwoii Kitoy
And like ttodc-llsh come o*er hia ttuddie
Wi« thy anld sdes !
He'8gane»he*tgaae! be*B free vi tora»
The ae best fWloir e'er wai bom !
Thee, Matthew, Nature's tel shall mourn
By wood and wild,
Where, haply, Pity strays forlorn,
Frae man exil'd*
Ye hills, near neebon o* tlie atuv^
That proudly cock your cresting caimt !
Ye difis, the haunts of sailing yearns,
Where echo slumbcn !
Come join, jre Nature's sturdiest bairns,
My wailing numbers;
Mourn ilka grove the cushat kens !
Ye haz'lly shawt and briery dens !
Ye bumies, wimplin down your glens,
Wi' toddlm' din.
Or foaming Strang, wi' hasty stens,
Frae lin to Un.
]VIoum little harebells o'er the lee ;
Ye stately fox-gloves iair to see ;
Ye woodbines, hanging bonnilie
In scented bow'rs ;
Ye rosea on your thorny tree.
The first o* flow'n.
At dawn, when ev'ry gnmf blade
Droops with a diamond at hb head.
At ev'n, when beans their firagranoe shad,
r th* rustling gale.
Ye rn'M^g'"" whiddin thro' the glade.
Gome join my waiL
ELEGY
OK
CAPTAIN MATTHEW HENDERSON,
A GXNTLEMAlf WHO MKLD TRI TATMin FOR
HIS HONOURS UntRDIATKLT FROSC Alf
MIGHTY COD !
fi00im0i^i0m0im0mmmfm
Dot now hh radiant couise b run.
For Matthew's eourjc was bright I
His soul was like the f lorious sii^
A matdiiess, Hcaii^y light I
O DxATH ! thon tyrant Mi and W^oify
The mciUe devil wi awoodit
Mourn ye wee aougiteia o* the wood ;
Ye grouse that crap the heather bud ;
Ye curlews calliag thro* a dnd ;
Ye whistling plover ;
And monm, ye whirring paitrick brood ;
He'a gaoe for ever !
Monm, 80«ly eoofei, and apedded teak;
Ye fisher herons, watching eda ;
Ye duck and drake, wi' airy whede
Greling the lake ;
Ye bitterns, tiU the magmire neli^
RMrforkbakab
Monm, clam'riag eniki at daw •* dqp^
'Mang fields •* flow*ri«f dmtt ^Kfi
And when ye wing yonr anawd way
FrmvmmMAmh
Tell thao far warlds, wha lies ia day.
Wham va dspknb
Ye houlel% ftae yonr iry ba(W*r,
In some anld tree^ or eldritek t»w*iv
What time the moon, wi' aiknt stowr,
SHi vp kir kH%
t7
i
tfo
BDRMB* WOftKS.
Wail tKro* tU dffiry audaiflit Imw '
Till wukrifc mfln I
O Ann, iant^ lulliy and pkiat !
Oft ha.f y9 bflud mw eintf ■feniiN s
Bat BOW, wliAt cbe nr bm remtiM
Bat talM of woo ;
An* frae my con tbe drappug raim
Maun ever flow.
Moorn, fpring, thon darling of the fear !
nk cowalip cup shall kep a toar :
Hum, ■mmer, while each corny qicar
Sboota up its 1iead»
^7 nf > pWB, flow'ry traate shear.
For him that's dead !
Thoo, autumn, wi' thy yellow hair,
In frief thy eallow mantle tear !
Thou, winter, hurling thro* the air
The roariiy hba^
Wide o*cr the naked world dedare
The worth we*Te ket !
Mourn him* thou lun, great eouroe of light !
Hbum, tmpwee of the ailait night !
And yoo, ye twinkling etamies bright,
My Blatthew monm!
For throng your orbe he's ta'en his flighty
Ne*er to return.
O SeitiUnom / the man, die brother !
And art thou gooe, and gone for ever !
And hast thou cross'd that unknown river,
Life's dreaiy bound !
Like thee^ where shall I find another,
The world around I
Go to your scnlptur'd tombs, ye Great,
In a' the tinsel trash o* sUte !
But by the honest turf 1*11 wait.
Thou man of worth!
And weep the ae beet fellow's fate
E'er lay in earth.
THE EPITAPH.
StoVi pasaeager ! my atory's brief;
And truth I ehall relate^ man :
I teU nae common tale o' grief^
For Blatthew was a great man.
If thoa uncommon merit Imst,
Yet spum'd at fortnne'a door,
A kwk of pity hither cast^
For Matthew was a poor man.
If thou a noble eodger art.
That passest by this grave, man ; '
There moulders here a gallant hearty
For Matthew waa a brave man.
had won thy
Afaright
HarolMawha
ForMatdiew
If thou at friendship's laerBd ea%
Wad lift itaelf resign, man ;
Thy sympathetie tear maun h\
For Matthew waa a kind man.
If thoa art stanneh without a
Like the unchanpng blue,
This waa a kinsman o* thy ain.
For Blatthew waa a true man.
If thon hast frit, and fun, and fire^
And ne'er guid wine did fiear.
This was thy billie, dam, and sire.
For Blatthew was a queer man.
If ony whiggish whingin sot.
To blame poer Bla£diew dare,
Bl«r dool and aorrow be hie lot.
For Blatthew waa a rare man.
)f then OB veot their worioi and wqri^
Omni Aivir vwoBUMii If bi| iMBi i
LAMENT OF MARY QUEEN
OF SCOTS,
OK fBK AFPBOACB OF afftHrC.
Now Katnre hangs her mantle green
On every bloomtng tree.
And spreads her eheels o* daisies white
Out o'er the gnusy lea :
Now Phodras cheers the crystal streams,
And glads the axure skies ;
But nought can glad the weary wight
That £ut in durance lies.
Now lav'rocks wake the merry mom.
Aloft on dewy wing ;
The merl^ in his noontide bow'r,
Blskee woodland echoes ring ;
The mavis mild wi' many a aole^
Sings drowsy day to rest :
lailove and freedom they rgoioe,
Wi' care nor thrall opprest.
Now bkioms the lily by the bank.
The primroee down the brae ;
The hawthorn's boddii^ in the glen,
And milk-white ie the alae :
The meanest hind in fiur Scotland,
May rove their aweete amang ;
But I, the Queen of a' Scotland,
Blann lie in prison Strang.
I waa the Queen o* bonnie France^
Where happy I hae been;
Fn* lightly raiae I in die mom,
Aa blithe lay down at e'en :
And Fm die eovereign of Seotiatt^
And moBT a traitor there ;
Tot here I he in ftnigB hui$^
POSMS.
Si
But M for tW, tlioa fiJie womm.
My ■uler uid my hit,
Grim rcngciiioc^ ytt» ihall whet a iword
That thro' thy aool shall gae :
The weeping blood in woman*! brettt
Was nerer known to thee ;
Nor th' balm that drape on wounds of woe
Frse woman's pitying e'e.
My son ! my son ! miy kinder stars
Upon thy fortune shine ;
And may those pleasures gild thy reign.
That neer wad blink on mine !
God keep thee frae thy mother's £ies^
Or turn their hearts to thee ;
And where thou meet'st thy mother's friend,
Remember him fur me !
O ! MMin, to me, may summer-suns
Nae mair light up the morn !
Nae mair, to me, the autumn winda
Wave o'er the yellow corn !
And in the narrow house o' death
Let winter round me rave ;
And the neat flow'rs that deck the spring.
Bloom on my peaceful grave.
TO ROBERT GRAHAM, Esq.
OF riNTEA.
Lati crippled of an arm, and now a leg,
About td beg a past fur leave to beg ;
Dull, listless, teasM, dejected, and depnfst,
(Nature is adverse to a cripple';* rejtt) ;
Will generous Graham list to hi« poet'* wall ?
(It soothes poor miser\', hearkening to lipr
tale).
And hear him curse the light he first survey M,
And doubly curse the luckless rhyming trade ?
Thou, Nature, partial Nature, I arraign ;
Of thy caprice maternal I complain.
The lion and the bnll thy care have found.
One shakes the forest, and one spurns the
ground :
Thou giv'st the ass his hide, the snail his shell.
Til' envenom'd wasp, victorious, guards his cell.
Thy minions, kings defend, control, devour.
In all th' omnipotcnce'of rule and power.—
Foxes and statesmen, subtile wiles ensure ;
The cit and polecat stink, and are secure ;
Toads with their poison, doctors with their
drug, [snug.
The priest and hedge-hog, in their robes are
£v*n silly woman has her warlike arts, [darts.
Her tongue and e}'es, her dreaded spear and
But Oh ! thou bitter step-mother and hard.
To thy poor, fenceless, naked child-i^hc Bard !
A thing nnteachable in world's skill,
And half an idiot too^ more helpl^ still.
No heels to bear him from the opening dun ;
|io cUwf tQ di^, his hated si^ht to vhuo ;
No horns, but those \>y lucldea Hyum
And those, alas ! not Amalthea*B horn :
No nerves olfactory. Mammon's trusty ear.
Clad in rich dulness' comfortable fur,
In naked feeling, and in achin'; pride.
He bears th' unbroken blast from every tide i
Vampyre booksellers drain him to the heart*
And scorpion critics cureless venom dart.
Critics — appall'd, I vcatare on the name^
TluMe cut-thruat Imndits in the paths of fiimt J
Bloody dissectors, worse than ten Monroes ;
He hacks to teach, they mangle to expose.
His heart by causeless, wanton malice wrc^p
By blockheads' daring into nuulness stung ;
His well-won lia)'s, than life itself more dicart
By miscreants turn, who ne'er one ^nrig ami
wear ;
Foil'd, bleeding, tortur'd. in the nncqoal atrift^
The hapless poet flounders on through life,
Till fle<l eacli hope thst onre his bosom find,
And fled each muse that glorious onee in^irrfy
Low sunk in sijualid, unpinti^cted age,
Dead, even resentment, tor hin injured pag%
He heeds or fe?U no more the ruthlcM er^8*t
rage !
So, by some hcd^e, the generous itMd 4t-
For half-Htarv'd snirling curs a dainty feast ;
By toil and famine wore to skin and
Lies sen<H;le»<) of each tuning bitch's
0 dulnotv ! portion of the truly blest !
Ctlm Rhelter'd haven of eternal rest !
Thy sons ne'er madden in tlie
Of fortune's \to\tir front, or torrid
If mantling high she fiiU the golden cup,
With sober Kelti<ih eaw they sip it up ; [i
Conscious the bounteous meed they wdl
Tliey only wonder * Home felks' do not
The grave sage hem thus easy picks his firof» '
And thinks the mallard a sad worthless dog.
When disappointment snap* the due of hops^
And thro' diM^ttrous night they darkling gro|%
With deaf emlurance i^luggislUy they bear.
And just conclude * that fools are fertune's cstt>*
So, heavy, pasnivc to the tempest's shocks.
Strong on the sign-post stands the stupid oix. •
Not so the idle muses' mad-cap train.
Not such the workings of their mimn siint
brain ;
In equanimity they never dwell.
By turnt in soiriug heaven, or vanlted hdL
1 dread thco, fate, rclentlcfs and severe, '
With all a poet's, hu^lland^ father's fear ;
Already one strong hold of hope is lost,
Gleneaim, the truly nohle, lies in dust ;
(Fled, like the sun oclips'd as noon appear^
And left us darkling in a world of tears) :
O ! hear my ardent, grateful, selfish pray'r!
Fintraj my other st^v, lonj bid? nA 9fUt I
Si
BURNS' WORKS.
Thro* a long life liU liope^ and wisliei crown.
And bright in cloudleM nkiei hui sun go down !
May hiits domestic smooth his private path ;
Give energ)' to life ; and soothe his latest breath,
With many a tilial tear circling the bed of
death !
LAMENT FOR JAMES EARL
OF GLENCAIRN.
The wind blew hollow frae the hills,
By fits the 8un*s departing beam
Ltdc'd on the fiidinf? yellow woods
That wav*d o'er Lugar's winding stream :
BcMBth m eraigy steep, a bard, .
Ladan with years and meikle pain.
In load lament bewail'd hin lord,
Whom dcaUi had all untimely ta*en.
He letnM him to an ancient aik,
Whose trunk was mould*ring down with
His looka were Ueiched white wi* time,
His hoary eheek was wet wi* tears !
And as he toach'd his trembling harp.
And as he tun*d his doleful sang,
The winds, lamenting thro* their caves,
To echo bore the notes alaog.
«/■
«• Ye seatter'd birds that faintly sing,
The relics of the vernal quire !
Ye woods that shed on a* the winds
The hoDoora of the «^ year !
A few short months, and glad and gay,
Again yell charm thi* ear and e*e ;
But nooht in all revolving time
Can gladness bring again to me.
'* I am m bending aged tree,
That long has stood the wind and rain ;
Bnt BOW hm come a cruel h\^u
And my last hald of earth is ^.inc :
Nae leaf o* mine shall greet the Kpriiii;,
Nae aimmer sun exalt my bloom ;
Bot I mmin lie before the Htorm,
And ithers plant them in my room.
•• IVe seen sae mony changefu' ypan.
On earth I am tf stranger grown ;
I wander in the ways of men,
ftlake vnknowing and unkno^'u :
Unheaxd, nnpitied, unrJicvcd,
I bear alane my ladi* o* rare.
For iQent, low, on beds of dnst,
I^V that would my sorrows n\\an>
** And last, (the sum uf a* my griefs) .'
My noble master lie;* in cUy ;
The fiow*r amang our barons bold,
Uia country's pride, hi^ c(iuntr\-*B stay :
In weary being now I pine.
For a* the laJfe of life is dcail,
And hope has left ray ageil ken.
On forward wing ibr ever fled.
*' Awake thy last sad voice, my harp !
The voice of woe and wiU despair !
Awake, resound thy latest lay.
Then sleep in silence evcrmair !
And thou, my lost, best, only friend.
That fillest an untimely tomb.
Accept this tribute from the bard
Thou brought from fortune's mirkest gloom
" In povertj's low barren vale.
Thick mists, obscure, involved me round ;
Tho' oh I tum*d the wistfnl eye,
Nae ray of fiime was to be found :
Thou found'st me like the morning sun
That melts the fogt in limpid air,
The friendlcMS bard and rustic song.
Became alike thy fostering care.
** O ! why has worth so short a date ?
While villains ripen grey with time !
Must thou, the noble, gen'rons, great.
Fall in bold manhood's hardy prime !
Why did I live to see that day?
A day to me so full of woe !
O ! had I met the mortal shafl
Which laid my benefactor low !
** The bridq^room may forget the bride
Was made his wedded wife yestreen ;
The monarch may foi^t the crown
That on his head an hour has been ; ■
The mother may forget the child
That smiles sae sweetly on her knee ;
Bnt I'll remember thee, Gleneum,
And a* that thou hast done for me !**
LINES,
SKXT TO SIR JOHN WHITKFORD, OF WHITEPORSh
HART. WITH THE FOKECOI.SO POXM.
Ti!or, yv\\o thy honour as thy God rever'st,
AVho, rnvi' thy miiufi reproach, nought earthly
ffar'xl.
To thee thi» votive offering I impart,
" The tearful tiibutc of a broken heart."
Tlie friend thou valucd'st, I the pahtm lov'd ;
His worth, his honour, all the world ^iprov'd.
We'll mourn till we too go as he is gone*
And ti^nd the dreary path to that dark
unknown.
TAM O' SHANTER :
A TALE.
or Bmwnyis and of Bcgilis ftill is this Bake.
Gatsfn HMHtak
^9'»m^m0m^m00>0>00im0*'0»^mmmm0m
Whfn chapman billies leave the
And drouthy mwborsi neebors mett,
POEfilS.
At markflt-dayt are wearing Ute,
An* IbUc begin to tak the gate ;
While we ut bouting at the nappy.
An' gettin* Ibu and unco happy,
We think na on the lang Sonta miles.
The moated, waten, i»!apitv and ttiUrs
That lie between ut and our hauie,
Whare titt our tulky tollen dame,
Oatherinf; her browt like gathering ttorm,
Nuning her wrath to keep it warm.
This truth fand honest Tarn o* ShanUr,
A« he frae Ayr ae night did canter,
( Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town turpattet,
For honett men and bonny Imet).
O 7am / had'tt thou but been tae wite.
At ta'en thy ain wife Kate*t advice !
She tauld thee weel thou was a akellun,
A blethering, blutteriag, drunken blellum ;
That frae November till October,
Ae market^y thou waa na tober ;
That ilka melder, wi' the miller.
Thou sat at lang at thou had tiller ;
That evVy naig wa» ca'd a «hoe on.
The tmith and thee gat roaring fou on ;
That at the L — d*>t houte, ev'n on Sunday,
Thou drank wi* Kirkton Jean till Monday.
She prophcsy'd, that late or toon,
Thuu would lie found deep drown'd in I}oon ;
f)r catch'd wi' warlockt in the mirk.
By AUowaij* auld haunted kirk.
Ah, gentle damet ! it gara me greet,
To think how raony countelt tweet.
How mony lengthen'd sage advicet.
The husband firae the wi^ despite^ !
But to our tale : Ae market night.
Tarn had got planted unco right ;
Fttt by an ingle, bleexing finely,
Wi* reaming twata, that drank divinely ;
And at hit dbow, aoutcr Johnny,
Hit ancient, tnttty, drouthy crony ;
Tarn Io*ed him like a vera brither ;
They had been fou for weeka thegither.
The night drave on wi* tai^ an* clatter ;
And a>-e the ale waa growing better :
The landlady and Teun grew gracioua,
Wi* favours, tccret, tweet, and preckma ;
The bouter tauld hit queerest atoriet ;
The landlord*!! laugh waa ready chorus :
The ttorm without might rair and ruatlc,
Tam did na mind the storm a whittle.
Care, rood to tee a man sae happy,
K'vn drown'd himself amang the nappy ;
At beet flee hame wi' lades o' treasure^
The minutet wing*d their way wi* pleasore :
Kingt may be blest, but Tam was glorious,
O'er a' the ills o' life victorious !
Bnt pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seise the flow*r, its bkMin is shed !
Or like the snow-falls in the river,
A moment white — then melta for ercr $
Or like the boKalis raoe.
That flit ere >'ou can point tlieir place ;
Or like the rainbow's lovely form
Evanishing amid the storm. —
Nae man can tether time or tide ;
The huiir appn»uciie« Tam maun ride ;
That liuur, o* night*a black arch the keywi
Tliat dreary hour he mounts his beast in ;
And hie a night he take the road in.
As ne'er poor tinner was abroad in.
The wind blew as *twud blawn its last ;
The rattliu' iihowers rose ou the blast :
The tpeedy gleams the darkness swallow'd ;
Loud, deep, and lang, the thunder bd]ow*d ;.
That night, a child might understand,
The deil had butinesa on hia hand.
Weel raonntod on hit grey mare, Mey^»
A better nc\'er lifted leg—
Tam tkelpit on thro* dub and mire,
Detpiting wind, and rain, and fire ;
Whiles holding fast his guid Uue bonnet ;
Whiles crooning o'er some auld Sooto
Whiles glow*ring round wi* prudent
Lett bogles catch him unawares ;
Kirk'Alloway wat drawing night
Whare ghoittt and houlett nightly cty»
By thit time he was crott the ford,
Whaie in the snaw the chapman smoor^d ;
And past the birks and meUcle staae»
AVhare drunken Chariie brak 's neck-bane ;
And thro' the whins, and by the cairn,
Whare hunters fand the murder'd bairn ;
And near the thorn, aboon the well,
Whare Munpo*i mither haiq;ed herseL—
Before him J}oon pours all hit floods ;
The douUing storm roars thro* die wtMds ;
The lightnings flash from pole to pole ;
Near and more near the thunders roll ;
When, glimmering thro* the groaning trees,
Kirk^AUoway seem'd in a bleese ;
Thro* ilka bore the beams were glandogi
And kmd resounded mirth and dancing*— '
Inspiring bold Jakn Barleycorn !
What dangers thon canst make na aeora !
Wi* tippenny, w« fear nae evil ;
Wi' usquebae we'll fiwe the deviL—-
The swata sae ream'd in ruiaiii** noddkt
Fair play, he cared na dnls a boddle.
But Magyie stood right aair ■siWish*d,
Till, by the heel and hand admoaish*d»
She ventured forward on the light ;
And, vow ! Titm saw an unco sight !
Warlocks and witches in a danoe ;
Nae ootillioa brent new firae /Vtmee,
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and nelsy
Put life and mettle in their heels.
A winnook-bunker in the eaat;
There sat auld Nick, in shape o* beast ;
A towiie tyke» black, grim, and large.
To gie them mnsie was his charge :
He screw*d his pipes and girt them ddii,
TiU roof and raftera m* did dirL^
t.
f
BURNS' WORKS,
Cottnt itood rouuJ lILe op^n preues
ThMt ibawM the dead in their last drastn ;
Aad by tome devilish cantrip aUf^ht,
Eaeh in its cauld Iiand held a l^hty—
Bf which heroic Tarn was able
To note upon the haly table*
A murderer's Imne* in gibbet aims ;
Twa span-lang, wee, iinchristen*d bairns :
A thief, new-iMitted frac a rape,
Wi* his last gaup his (rab did fpipe ;
Tlve tomaluwk", wV blude red-rusted ;
Kre sc^'mitarn wi* luimliT crii*te<l ;
A garter, whirii a \n\)e had ittrangled ;
A knife, a father** tiimat liad inaiigl«d,
Whom bin aiii kod o* lite bereft,
The grey hairs yet htack to the heft ;
Wi' mair o' horrible and awfii*
Which ev*n to name wad be unlaWfu*.
As Tammie ;ilowrM, ainazM and curious,
The mirth and fun grew fjst and furitniik :
The piper loud and louder blew :
The dancers quick and quicker ticw ;
They reerd, they hct, they cro)«'d, they deekit,
Tin ilka carlin Kwst and reekit,
And coost her dnddie.i to ttii* wark.
And linket at it in her sark !
Now 7ViM, O Tttm ! had tbi'v been queans
A* plump an* trapping, in their teens ;
Thor sarks, instead o' creu»Iiic flanneu,
Been snaw-white seventeen liuoder linen !
Thir breeks o* uiine, my only pair,
Hiat ance were plush, o* guid blue hair,
I wad hae gi*en them aff my hurdies I
Bor ae blink o* the bonnie burdica !
But wither*d beldama, auki and droll,
Bigwoodie hags wad spean m foal,
Lowping and flinging on a crunimock,
Z wooder didna turn thy stomach.
Bat Tarn kenn*d what was what fu* bnwliet
There was ae winsome wench and walie,
That night enlisted in the core,
iLang after kenn'd on Carriek shore !
W mony a beast to dead ahe shot.
And perishM mony a bonnie boat.
And shook baith meikle com and bear.
And kept the country side in fear).
Her cutty-sark, o' Paisley ham,
That while a lassie she had worn,
la longitude though sorely scanty,
It was her best, and ahe was vauntie.—
Ah ! little kenn*d thy reverend grannie,
That sark she coft for her wee Nannie,
Wi* twa pund Sootf, ('twas a* her riches)^
Wad ever grac'd a dance of witches I
But here my muse her wing mann ooor ;
Sic flights are far beyond her pow'r ;
To sing how NannU lap and flang,
(A sonple jade she was and Strang)
Aod how Tarn, stood, like ane bewitch*d,
And thought hit very een corich'd :
Even S^tan gloWrM, tnd fidg'd fu* fidn,
And hotch'd and blew wi' might and miia «
Till first ae caper, syne anither,
Tam tint his reason a* the^ther.
And roars out, ** Weel done, Cutty-aaik !**
And in an instant all was dark ;
And scarcely had he Moffgit rallied.
When out the hellish legion sallied.
As lK->e^ bizz out wi* angry fyke,
When plundering herds assail their byke ;
A<« open pusMc*M mortal fiies,
When, pop ! she starts before their nose ;
As eager runs the market mnrd,
Wlieii " Cateh the thief!" reMmnds aloud ;
i>o Maggie runs, the witches fellow,
Wi* monie an eldritch screech and hollow.
Ah, T&m! Ah, Tarn! thou*ll get thy fairi%
In hell they'll ruast thee like a herrin !
In vain thv Kate awaits thv comin !
Ao^e soon will be a woefu* woman !
Xow, do thy iipeedy utmost, Meg,
And win the key-stane * of the brig ;
There at them thou thy tail may toss,
A running stream they dare na croxs.
Hut ere the key-Ktane she could moke,
The fient a tale »hc liad to shake !
F(ir iVcfMnie, far before the rest.
Hard upon noble Magpie prest.
And flew at Tam wi' furious ettle ;
But little wist she Maggie't mettle^
Ae spring brought aff her master hale,
liut left behind her ain grey tail :
The carlin claught her by the rump.
And left poor Maggie scarce m stump.
Now, wha this tale o* truth shall read,
nk man and mother's son take heed :
Whene'er to drink you are inclin'd.
Or cutty-sarks run in your mind.
Think ye may buy the joys o'er dear.
Remember Tam o* ShaiUT't mtrc.
ON SEEING A WOUNDED
HARE LIMP BY ME,
WHICH ▲ rZLLOW BAD JUST SHOT AT.
Ikhcmax man ! curse on thy barb'roos art,
And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye :
May never pity soothe thee with a sigh*
Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart !
Go live, poor wanderer of the wood and field.
The bitter little that of life remains :
* It b a well known fact, that witehes, or any cril
■piritt, have no power to follow a poor wight any Ur.
ther than the midUle of the next runnini{ •tream.— It
may be proper likewbs to ttsntion to the bsninhlisd
traveller, that when he fidh in with Aofto, whittsver
danger may be in hb goinff forwai^, tbsrt b mttCb
more bamrd in taming back.
P0BM9.
Ko mem Um thkhMiag Imkai aad Tcrdint
To thee ihaU bome^ or food, or pottliiM yield. ,
Seek, mangled wretch, tome place of wonted
rest,
No more of rat, hot now tby dying bed !
The sheltering ruahea whittling o*er thy head »
The cold earth with thy bloody boaom prett.
Oft at by winding Nith, I moting wait
The eober eve, or hail the checriul dawn,
1*11 miM thee sporting o*er the dewy lawn.
And cone the ruffiaa*a aim, tpd mmm thy
hAplcii iatf.
ADDRESS TO THE SHADE
OF THOMSON,
ON CKOWNIirO BIS BUST AT XDNAM, BOl-
BOBOHSHIBE, WITH BATS.
Whilx Tirgin Spring, by Eden's flood.
Unfolds her toider mantle green.
Or pranks the sod in frolic mood.
Or tunes Eolian strains between :
While Summer, with m matron grace.
Retreats to DryburgVs cooling shade,
Yet oft, delighted, stops to trace
The progress of the spiky blade ;
While Autumn, benefiictor kind.
By Tweed erects his aged head.
And sees, with self-approring mind,
Each creatnre on his bounty feed :
While maniac Winter rages o*er
The hills whence cUane Yarrow flows.
Rousing the turbid torrent's roar.
Or sweeping, wild, a waste of snows :
So kng, sweet Poet of the year.
Shall bloom that wreath thou well hast won ;
While Scotia, with exulting tear.
Proclaims that Thoicbox was her son.
EPITAPHS.
ON A CELEBRATED RULING
ELDER.
Hxax souter John in death does sleep ;
To hell, if he's gaoe thither,
Satan, gie him thy gear to keep.
Hell baud it weel
ON A NOIST POLEMIC
BxLow thir atanes lie Jamie*a banes :
O Death, its my opinion.
Thou ne'er took such a Ueth'ria bitch
Into thy darit dominion !
ON WEE JOHNNY.
Hicjacet wee Jokmt^
Wiiox'iiE thou art, O reader, know.
That death has murder'd Johnny !
.\n' here his body lies fii' low—
Fur taulf he ne'er had ony.
FOR THE AUTHOR'S FATHEX.
O TK whove cheek the tear of pity stains.
Draw near with pious rev'renoe and tMiail
Here lie the loving husband's dear remmu^
The tender fiither and the gen'roos friend*
The pitying heart that felt for human woe ;
The dauntless heart that fear'd no humia
pride;
The frirad of man, to vice alone a foe ;
** For ev'n his fiiilhigs leaned to TirtM*t
side."*
FOR R. A. Esq.
Kkow thou, O stranger to tht fiuoe
Of this much lor'd, much honourM naoM •
(For none that knew him need be told)
A warmer heart death ne'er made oqU»
FOR G. H. Esq.
Thk poor man weeps — here
Whom canting wretches blam'd :
But with wmeh a§ kg, where'er he bc^
May I be taved or if ■ rf/
A BARD'S EPITAPH.
Is there a whim-inspired £m1,
Owre fiut for thought, owre hot Car rak^
Owro Uate to seek, owre proud to snool.
Let him draw near ;
And owre this gramy heap sing dool,
And drap a tear.
Is there a bard of rustic soqg,
Who» noteleai^ steala the crowds among,
• floMiMi,
16
BURNS' WORKS.
Tktt WMUjr Out ant tiirai«^
O, paai not I17 !
Boty with a firmtovfiBeluig strong,
Here heave a tigh.
Is there a man, whose judgment dear,
CSui others teach the course to steer,
Tot mna, himself, life** mad career,
Wild as the wave ;
Hero piiie and, through the starting tear,
Survey this grave.
The poor mhabitant bulow,
Waa quick to feam and wise to know,
Mad kaenlj frit the friendly glow.
And aofter fiamty
BbI thooghtleas follies laid him low,
And stain'd his name !
Raader, attend — whether thy soul
8Mn fraeyli flights beyond the pole^
Ofr dlrirling gn:dbs this earthly hole.
In low pursuit ;
eantious, tdf'-etmtrti^
la wiidom*s root
OH THX LATB
CAPTAIN GROSE'S
inBAAIMAVlOirt THKOnOH SCOTLAKD, COL-
\ TKS ▲VTXQUimS or THAT UMQDOM.
BsAm, Land o* Cakes, and brither Scots,
Ytm Maidenkirk to Johnny Groat's ;
If there's a hila in a' your coats,
I rede you tent it :
A duald^i amang you, taking notes,
And, fiutl^ he'U prent it
If in yonr bounds yz chance to light
Upon a fine, fiit, fbdgel wight,
O stature short, but genius bright.
That's he, mark weel—
And wow ! be has an unco slight
O' cauk aud keeL
By some auld, houlet-haunted biggin,*
Or kirk, deserted by its liggin,
It*t ten to ane ye*ll find him snu^ in
Some eldritch i)iirt,
Wi' deils, they say, L — d safe*^ ! colleaguin'
At some black art. —
Ilk ghaist that haunts auld ha* or chamer,
Te gipaey-gaog that deal in glamor,
jkad yoa deep-read in hell's black grammar.
Warlocks and witches ;
Tan qaaka at his oonjuring hammer,
1 e m^night bitches.
Ifa tanld he was a sodger bred,
jkad ant wad rather fii*n than fled ;
o WtolriiABtiqattieiof SootlBBd.
Bat now he'i quat the oude Uadsb
And dog-skin waBeli
And ta*en the Amtiquarian trodt^
I think they call it '
He has a fbuth 0' auld nick nackets :
Rusty airn caps and jinglin* jackets,*
Wad had the Lothians three in tacketa,
A towmont guid :
And parritch pats, and auld saut-backet^
Before the Flood.
Of Eve*s first fire he has a cinder ;
Auld Tubal Cain'a fire-ahool and frnder ;
That which distinguished the gender
O' Balaam's ass ;
A broom-stick o* the witch of Endor,
' Weel shod wf
Forbye^ hell shape yon afl', fii* |^
The cut of Adam's phUibeg ;
The knife that nicket Abers craig.
Hell prove yon nuyt
It was a fimlding jocteleg.
Or lang-kail guliie*—
But wad ye see him in hie glee,
For meikle glee and fiin has h^
Then set him down, and twa or three
Guid follows wi' him ;
And port, O port / Shine thou a wea^
And then ye'U sea him!
Now, by the pow'rs o' verse and pron !
Thou art a dainty chiel, O Grose ! —
Whoe'er o* thee shall ill auppose^
They sair misea* thee ;
I'd take the rascal bv the nose.
Wad say. Shame fr' thae !
TO MISS CRUIKSHANKS,
A VFRY YOUNG LADY, WRITTEN OH TH« BULXC
LKAF or A BOOK, r»K»MTED TO BMM Wf
Tll£ AUTHOR.
Beauteous rose-bud, young and gay*
Hlooming on thy cjily May,
Never inay'st thou, lovely flow'r.
Chilly slu'ink in sleety hhow'r !
Never Boreas' hoary path,
' Never Eurus' pois*nou« breath.
Never baleful stellar lights
Taint thee with untimely blights !
Never, never reptile thieif
Riot on thy virgin leaf!
Nor even Sol too fiercelv view
Thy bosom blushing still with dew !
May'st thou long» sweet crimson geOj
Richly deck thy native atem ;
• Vide kis treatise on Andent Armour ami Waqpcm*
FOEMS.
Tin ■ome evening, tober, etIiB»
Dropping dew% and breathing balm.
While all anmnd the woodland ring%
And ev*ry bird thy requiom ainga;
Thou, amid the dirgeful aound.
Shed thv dying honoura round,
And resign to parent earth
The lordieat form ahe e*er ga?e birth.
OV KBADINO IV ▲ NXWaPAPEl^ THZ OXATB OV
JOHN M*LEOD, Esa
BKOTHEK TO A TOUXO LADY, A PAKTICULAK
FRUVD OF THK AUTUOR*8.
Sad thy tale, thou idle page,
And rueful thy alarms r
Death tears the brother of her lore
From laabella'a arma.
Sweetly deck'd with pearly dew
The morning rose may blow ;
But, cold successive noontide blaata
May lay ita beauties low.
Fair on Isabella's morn
The sun propitious amil*d ;
But, long ere noon, succeeding clooda
Succeeding hopea b^uil*d.
Fate oft tears the bosom chords
That nature finest strung :
So Isabella's heart was form*d.
And so that heart was rung.
Dread Omnipotence^ alone,
Gm heal the wound he gave ;
Can point the brimful grie^wom eyes
To sceues beyond the g^ave.
Virtuous blossoms there shall blow.
And fear uo withering blast ;
There Isubella's spotless worth
Shall happy be at last.
Dry-withering, WKrte my fiMBUBf
And drink my cryiUl
THE HUMBLE PETITION OF
BRUAR-WATER.*
TO THE KOBLE DUKE OP ATHOLS.
Mr Lord, I know your noble ear
Woe ne*er assails in Viiin ;
Embolden*d thus, I b^ youMl hear
Your humble slave complain,
How anucy Phoebus* scorching beams,
In flaming summer-pride.
The lightly-jumpin glowrin troiil%
That thro* my w^era play.
If, in their random, wantmi qpoat%
They near the margin stray ;
If, hapless chance ! they Uxtget ]aa§,
Tax scorching up so shallow.
They're left the whitening staii
In gasping death to wallow.
Last day I grat, wi* spite and taen»
As poet B— — came by.
That, to a bard I should be seen,
Wi* half my channel dry :
A panq;yric rhyme, I ween.
Even as I was he shor*d me :
But had I in my glory been.
He, kneeling, wad ador*d me.
Here, foaming down the shelvy rocks,
In twisting strength I rin ;
There, high my boUing torrent
Wild-roaring o'er a linn :
Enjoying large each spiii^ and well
As nature gave them me,
I am, although I say't mysel.
Worth gaun a mile to see.
* Bruar Falls, in Athole, are excscdingly picturesque
and beautiful ; but their eflbct Is much impaired by the
want of tceei aBd ibnilM*
Woold then my noUe master
To grant my highest wishes,
He*ll £ade my banks wi* tow*ring treei^
And bonnie spreadii^ bnahes ;
Delighted doubly then, my Lord»
You'll wander oa my bank%
And listen mony a grateful bird
Return you tuneftil thanka.
The sober laverock, warbling wiklf
Shall to the skies aspire ;
The gowdspink, music's gayest child.
Shall sweetly join the choir :
The blackbird strong, the lintwhite detft
The mavis wild and mellow ;
The robin pensive autumn dieer.
In all her locks of yellow.
This ton, a covert shall ensure.
To shield them from the storm ;
And coward maukin sleep secure^
Low in her grassy form.
Ht-re shall the shepherd make his let^
To Aveavc his crown of flowers ;
Or find a shelt'ring safe retreat.
From prune descending ahowen.
And here, by sweet endearing atealthy
Shall meet the loving pair.
Despising worlds with all thdur wealth
As empty idle care :
The duw'rs shall vie in all their ehame
The hour of heav'ii to gnoe^
And birka extend their firagranl aoH
To tcrem tho dov cmbnMi
»
BURNS' WORKS.
8mm mnang bard inaj itrgjry
Mad tvt the wnokiny, devf lawn,
And mialj monntaiii, grcf ;
Off by the reaper's nightly betin,
IGld chcqncriDg through the tivee,
Bsf* to my darkly danhiog ttreamt
Hoane ■wdling on the breeie.
LaC lofty fin, and aiihea cool,
My lowly banki o*enpread.
And riew, deep-bending in the pool.
Their ahadowi* watery bed !
LaC fragrant birku in wootlbinei drest,
My craggy eliffii adorn ;
And, fcr the little aon^ter't neit.
The eloae embow'riog thorn.
80 may old Scotia*s darling hope.
Your little angel band,
flaring, like their fjthem, up to prop
Their honour*d native hnd !
80 may thro* Albion's farthest ken.
To aoeial-flowiog glaMcv,
Tka graee be — ** Athole's lioant men.
And Athole*» bonoie las»c» !**
ON SCARING SOME WATER-
FOWL,
ly LOCH-TDRIT ;
A WILD SCZNS AMpXO THE UXLLS OT
OCJITSRTYai:.
Wht, ye tenants of the lake.
For me your watery haunt funake?
Tell me, fisllow-creatoies, why
At my presence thus you fly ?
Why disturb your social joys,
Pltrcnt, filial, kindred tie* f —
Common friend tu you and me,
Kature*8 gifb to all arc free :
Paaeeful keep your dimpling wave,
Busy feed, or wanton lave ;
Or, beneath the sheltering rock.
Bide the surging bilIoar*a shock.
Conscious, bluxbing for our race,
Soon, too soon, your fears I trace.
Man, your proud usurping fue,
WoukI be lord of all below ;
Plumes himself in Freedom's pridc)
Tyrant stern to all beside.
The eagle, from the d'tSy brow.
Marking j-ou his prey below.
In hia breut no pity dwells,
Strai^ necessity compela.
Bat man, to whom alone is giv'a
A ray direct from pitying heiav*ii,
Ofarioaa in hb heart hnmane—
Aal crMtwnti fcr hia plcMure alain.
In these aavage, liquid plains^
Only known to wand*ring awiia^
Where the mossy rivlet sti>iyB (
Far from human hannts and ways ;
All on nature ywi depend.
And lifie's poor aeaaon peaceful tpnd»
Or, if man*s anperior might.
Dare invade your native right,
On the lofty ether borne,
Man with all his pow*rs yovL scorn :
Swiftly aeek, on clanging wings,
Other lakes and other springs }
And the foe you cannot brave,
Spom at least to be his slave.
WRITTEN \tlTH A PENCIL
■
OVER THE CHIMKET-riECB IK THE PAELOUA
OF THE INK AT KEXXOEE, TATMOUTH.
Adxieikc Nature in her wildest grace.
These northern scenes with weary feet I trace ;
O'er nuny a winding dak^ and painful steep,
Th* abodes of covey'd grouse and timid aheip^
My savage journey, curious, I pursue.
Till fam'd BreadaJbane opens to my view— -
The meeting clifs each deep-aunk glen divides.
The woods, wild-scatter'd, clothe their ample
sides;
Th* outstretching lake, embosom*d 'moag the
hills.
The eye with ii*onder and amaaement fiUs ;
The Tay meand*ring sweet in infant pride.
The palace ri«ing on his verdant side.
The lawns wood-fringed in Natures native taste |
The hillocks dropt in Nature's careless haste !
The arches striding o*er the new-bom stream ;
The village, glittering in the moontide beam-*
......
Poetic ardours in mv bosom swell.
Lone wandering by the hermit's mosay eell :
The sweeping theatre of iiaoging woods ;
The incessant roar of headioog tumblinf
floods—
Here Poesy might wake her heav'n-taoght ]yr%
And look through nature with creative fire ;
Here, to the wrongs of fate half recoucil'd.
Misfortune's lighten'd* steps might wander
wild ;
I And disappointment, in these lonely bounds,
I Find balm to noothe her bitter rankling wounds :
Here heart-struck Grief might heaven •ward
stretch her scan.
And injur'd worth forget and pardon man.
POEMS.
WRITTEN WITH A PENCIL,
tTAKDIVO BT THS FALL OF FTEftl, VXAK
LOCH-KXSS.
Among the heathy hilli and raprged woods
The roaring Fyers pours hii mowy floods ;
Till full he dashes on the rocky mounds,
Where, thro* a shapeless breach, his stream
resounds.
As high in air tl^ bursting torrents flow.
As deep recoiling surges foam below.
Prone down the ruck the whitening sheet de-
scends,
And viewless echo*s ear, astonish'd, rends.
Dim-seen, through rising mists, and ceaseless
showers,
The hoary cavern, wide-surrounding lowers.
Still thro* the gap the struggling river toils.
And still below, the horrid caldron boils—
THE WHISTLE t
A BALLAD.
«#i*#itftf>«WlMSMW«W«
OK TUX BIRTH OF A
POSTHUMOUS CHILD,
•OBN IN FRCULIAB CIRCCMSTAKCBS OF
FAMILY DISTRESS.
Sweet Flow*rct, pledge o* meikle lovc^
And ward o' mony a prayer,
What heart o* stane wad thou na roovei
Sae helpless, sweet, and fair !
Kovemlier lurples o*er the lea,
Chill on thy lovely form ;
And gunc, alus ! the ahelt'ring tre^
Should shield thee firae the storm*
3Iay He who gives the rain to pour.
And wings the blast to blaw.
Protect thee frae the driving shower,
The bitter frost and snaw !
May Hx, the friend of woe and want,
^Vho heals life*s various stounds.
Protect and guard the mother plant,
And heal her cruel wounds !
But hte she flourish*d, rooted fast.
Fair ou the summer morn :
Now feebly bends she in the blast.
Unsheltered and forlorn.
Blest he thy bloom, thou lovely gem,
Uniicath'd by ruffian hand 1
And from thee many a parent stem
Arise to deck our land !
As tlie autliemiRproff history of the Whistle Is #■-
rious, I ihall here give it— In the train of Anne of
Denmark, when she came to Scoclsnd with our James
the Sixth, there esme over alio a Dan^Ah eentlemaa of
^ganric stature and great prowe«* and a matEhlisB
ihatnpion of Haochuiu He had a little etXKiy 'Whirtla
which nt the winnienoenient of the orcicx he laid on
Uic titblr, ami whoever was Imc able to blow it. erciy
body el«e txiiiij* disabled by tlic potency of the bottle;,
was to carry off UtcAVhintle as a trophy of victoty.
The Daiiv produced credentials of his vtrCorles withow
n bJji^lc (U'loat, at tlio courts of CopenhMen, Stock*
holm. Mowuw, Warsaw, and sevcmi or the petty
courts in Germany ; and challen|;ed the Scots Baedm*
naiian* to the altenative of tryi^ his wo wets, or oka
of aekoowlcdging thdr inferiority. After many owiw
throws on the part of the Scou. the Dane was eneouB*
tered by Sir Robert Lawrie of M axwetton, aneastor of
the prtMcnt worthy baronet of that name i who, after
three days and three nif(hts* hard contest, ld(t Ite
Scandinavian under the table,
AiidUmmthaWUaa$U»nfmUm»krUL
Sir Walter, son to Sir Robert before mentioned, tH
terwards lost the Whiitle to Walter Riddel, of Glen.
riddel, who had married a sister of Sir Walter's. OB
Friday, the ICth of October 1790, at Frlars^^arse, tto
WhiKtle wa» once more contended for, as related in tbo
ballad, by the present Sir Robert Lawrie of Maawil-
ton; Robert Riddel, Esq. of Glenriddel, lineal de-
scendant and representative of Walter Riddel, who
woo the Whistle, and in whoso family it had eoatf-
nued : and Alcajuider Ferguson, Em. of Craigdarrocn,
likewise dewended of the great Sir Robert t which ksl
gentleman carried offtbe hani>won hooouis of tho ML
I siKo o^t "Whistle, a Whutle of worth,
I sing of a Whistle, die pride of the Norih,
Waa brought to the court of our good Scottiili
king,
And long with this Whistle all Scotland ahdl
ring.
Old Loda,* still rueiog the arm of Finga],
The god of the bottle aeoda down from hii
hall—
« This Whistle's yovr ehalleoge, to ScotlaaA
get o'er,
And drink them to hell. Sir ! or ne'er
more !"
Old poets have snng, and old chronicles taOp
What championa ventur'd, what chsmpioai
fell;
The son of great Loda was conqueror still,
And blew on the Whistle his requiem shrill.
Till Robert, the lord of the Cairn and tl«
Scaur,
Unmatch*d at the bottle, unconqoer*d in wir»
He drank his poor god-ship as dieep as the sei^
No tide of the Baltic e'er drunker than he.
Thus Robert, victorioni, the trophy hn
gain'd;
Which now in his lunue has for agea remain'd }
• Set Oiilan*s Caiie-thaa.
•0
BURNT WOJEUCS.
TO thfw aobb dMilttMb and diof bitbloodl,
ecmtieit igain have raiiew*d«
Three jorout good MUmt, with heirtt clear
of flaw;
GnBfdmocht n fiunona ftr wit, worth, and
kw;
And tmaty G&mriddel, m ikilTd ia old coins ;
Aad pOaat Sir Robert, deep read in old winai,
Ckaifdarroch began, with a tongue imooth
aaoil,
Sinriog Glaoriddel to yiehl ap the ipoil ;
Or dee he would muater the headi of the clan,
And once man, in claret, try which was the
'^ Bf the goda of the oocientK,*' Glenriddel
repliea,
** Before I lurrender ao glorious a priac,
ni oonjnre the ghost of the great Rorie More,*
, And bumper hk horn with him txienty times
o er*
Sr Robert, a ooUier, no speech would pre-
tend.
But hn ne'er turn*d his bark on his fue — or his
friend,
8nd, TosB down the Whistle, the prize of the
in daret, he*d die or he*d yield.
To the board of Glenriddel our heroes repair,
80 noted for drownii^ of sorrow and care ;
Bnt for wine and for welcome not more known
to fame.
Than the sense, wit, and taster of a sweet lovely
dame.
A bard waa selected to witness the fray.
And IsD fritnre ages the feats of the day ;
A bard who detested all Budnc»it aiid spleen,
And wifih*d that Parnauua a viaeyurd hail
been.
The dinner being ovrr, the claret they ply,
And every new cork is a new bpriog ot juy ;
In the bands of old friendship and kindred so
set.
And the bands grew the tighter the more they
were wet.
Gay pleasure ran not as bumpers ran o*er ;
Bright Phoebus ne'er witness*d so joyous a core.
And vowed that to leave them he waa quite
forlorn.
Tin QFOthia hinted he*d see them next mom.
Six bottles a-piece had well wore ont the
night.
When gallant Sir Robert, to finish the fight.
« SatMoMiA Tour to tbf UetoUafc
Tim*d o'er in one bnmpar a hottie of red.
And swore 'twaa the way that their anccstort
did.
Then worthy Glenriddel, so cautious and
■age.
No longer the waiian, ungodly, would wage ;
A high-mling Elder to wiUlow in wine !
He left the foul business to folks less divine.
The galknt Sir Robert fought hard to the
end; j
But who can with £ite and quart bumpers coi^
tend?
Though fote said — a hero should perish in light ;
So uprose bright Phcebus — and down fell the
knight.
Next uprose our bard, like a prophet in
drink : —
** Craigdarroch, thou 'It soar when creation
shall sink ;
But if thou would flourish immortal in rhyme.
Come— one l>ottle more— and hsve at the sub-
lime !
'* Thy line, that have struggled for Freedom
with Brui*^
Miall heroes and patriots ever prodnee ;
So thine be the Uurel, and mine be the bay ;
The field thou hast won, by yon bright god of
day !"
SECOND EPISTLE TO DAVIE,
A BROTHXa roxT. f
I'm three times doubly o'er jroor debtor,
For your auhUfarrcnt, frien'ly letter ;
Till)' I uidiin Biy't, I doubt ye flatter.
Ye speak so fair :
For my puir, Niily, rhymin' clatter.
Some leas maun sair.
Hale be your lu'srt, hale be your fiddle ;
T^an:; may your elbuck jink and diddle, .1
To cheer you through the weary widdle
O' war'ly cares.
Till bairns' bairns kindly cuddle
Your auld grey hairk
But Davie, lad, I'm red 3re're glaildt ;
I'm tauld the Muse ye hae negleekit ;
An* gif it's sae, ye sod be lickit
Until ye fyke ;
Sic hana aa yon and ne'er be fiukit.
Be hain't wha lika.
1. J J?!fi*P^"l^ the poems at Oevid SUIar, pn^
UdMdatKifraanK^^
•dmourautboilipittiiapoaiii.
fO&MS.
«t
For me, Tin on Panumu brink,
Rivin' the words to g«r them clink ;
Whylen daex't wi* love, whyles daes*t wi* drink*
Wi* jads or roaaooe ;
An* whyles, but aye owre late, I think,
Braw sober leawns.
Of a* the thooghtless sons o* man,
Common* me to the bardie clan ;
Except it be some idle plan
O' rhymin* clink.
The devil-haet, that I and ban.
They erer think.
Nae thought, nae view, nae scheme of livin* ;
Nae cares to gie ur joy or grievin* :
But ju»t the pouchie put the nieve in,
An* while ought's there,
Then, hiltie, skiltie, we gae scrievin*.
An* fash nae mair.
Leeze me on rhyme ! it's a3re a treasure,
My chief, amaist my only pleasure,
At hame, a-fiel*, at wark or leisure,
The Muse, poor hiatie !
Tho' rough an* foploch be her measure,
She's seldom lax}-.
Hand to the Muse, my dainty Davie :
The warl' may play yon monj a abavie ;
But for the Muse, she'll never leave ye,
Tho' e'er sae poor,
Na, cren tho* lim|nn* wi' the spavie
Frae door tae door.
ON MY EARLY DAYS.
I MIND it weel in early date,
When I was beordlcs*, young, and bhrte,
An' first could thmh the bam,
Or baud a yokin o* the pleugh.
Ad' thu* forfbughten sair eneugh.
Yet uneo proud to learn—-
M'hen first amang the yellow com
A man I reckon'd waa.
And wi' the lave ilk merry mom
Could rank my rig and lass
Still shearing, and clearing
The tither stooked raw,
Wi* daivers, an' haivera,
Wearily the day awa.
n.
E'en then a wiah, I mind ita pow'r,
A wiah that to my latcat boor
Shall stMogiy beave my breast.
That I for poor auld ScotUnd's sake.
Some usefii' plan or book oonld make,
Or sing a sang, at least.
The rough burr-thiatle, spnadiiv ^»^
tiwbctiM
I tum'd dM
An' spared the aymbol
NoBitkm, ooBtatk»»
Bf y envy e'er could raiae,
A S<»t still, but bkt HilU
I knew sae higher prnat.
HL
Bat still the elements o* sang
In formleaa jumble, right an' np|»
Wild floated in my brain :
*Till on that har*st I said befon,
My partner in the meny cora,
8lie Toaa*d the forming atrain :
I see her yet, the sonaie qnean»
That lighted up her jingle.
Her witching smile, her pauky e'en
That gart my heart-strings tii^ :
I filed, inspired.
At every kindling keek,
But bashii^, and dashing,
I feared aye to apeak.*
ON THE DZATH OF
SIR JAMES HUNTER BLAIR.
Thx lamp of day, with iU-preaaging glares
IXm, cloudy, sunk beneiih the westNa wav»;
Th* inconstant blast bowl'd thro' the darkeniof
air.
And hollow whistled in the roeky cave.
Lone aa I wander'd by each cliff ai)d dell.
Once the loved haunts of Scotia's royal
train ;f
Or mnsed where limpid streams once ha]low'd»
well,i
Or mould ring rains mark the sacnd £uie.$
Th* increising blast roar'd round the beetliif
rocks.
The clouds, awift-wing*d, flew o*cr the starry
•ky,
The groaning treea untimely abed their locka.
And ahoodng meteors caught the startled eye.
The paly moon rose in die livid east.
And 'mong the clifi disclosed a stately fom.
In weeda of woe that frantic beat bar bnHt,
And miz*d ber wailinga with the raviag
storm*
Wild to my heart the filial pulses glow,
*Twas Caledonia's trophied shield I view*d ;
Her form majestic dnx^'d in pensive woe^
The lightning of bar eye in tean imbued.
• The mder will And some enkaatloa of thU
natan.vllL
The^Ktaf^ Park at HdftooMngm.
St.Aallioiiy^WslL
StAoilioBy^CbapaL
T5
u
BURNS' WORKS.
Bcrencd tLat ipear, redoubtable in war,
Reclined that bantter, ent in fields imfurl'd,
That like a deathful meteor gleam'd afar.
And braved the mighty monarch* of the
world. —
** My patriot ROD fill* an untimely fprave !*'
With accents wild and lifted arms she cried ;
** Low lies the hand that ofc was stretch'd to
save.
Low lies the heart that swelled with honest
pride!
** A weeping country joins a widow's tear.
The helpless poor mix with the orphan's cry ;
Hie drooping art» around their patron's bier.
And grateful science heives tlie heartfelt sigh.
" I saw my sons resume their ancient fire ;
I saw fur Freedom's blossoms richly blow !
Bat, ah ! how hope is born but to expire !
Relentless fiite has laid the guardian low.»
" My patriot fills, but shall he lie unsung,
While empty greatness saves a worthless
name!
No ; every Muse shall join her tuneful tongue,
And future ages hear his growing fame.
" And I frill join a mother's tender cares,
Thro' future times to make his virtnos Isat,
That distant yean may boast of other Blaiit" —
She said, tad yamsh'd with the sweeping
Mast.
WRITTEN
OV THE BLAKE LEAF OP ▲ COrr OPTUE POEMS,
PKESKNTED TO AX OLD SWEF-TUEART, TlfEK
XABBIED.*
OxcE fondly lov'd, and still remember *d dear,
Sweet early object of my youthful vows.
Accept thin mark of frirndHhip, warm, sincere,
Friendship ! 'tis all cold duty noiv allows. —
And when you read the simple artless rhymes.
One friendly sigh for hini, he asks no more,
Who distant burns in flaming torrid climes.
Or haply lies beneath th' Atlantic roar.
THE JOLLY BEGGARS:
A CANTATA.
RECITATIVO.
WuEH lyart leaves bortrow the yird.
Or wavering like the Bauckie-bird,f
Bedim cauld Boreas' blast ;
• The alrl mentioned in the letter to Dr. Mootfi
t Tbt old ircotcb iiaqnt for thf BtU
When hiihtanes drive tvi* bitter slytf^
And infint frmts begin to bite.
In hoar}' crauvuch drest ;
Ae night at e'en a merry core,
O* randie, gangrel bodir*.
In Poosie-Nansie's held the ^plore.
To drink their orra dudrlicN :
Wi* quaffing and laughing.
They ranted and they sang ;
Wi' jumping and thumping.
The very girdle rang.
First, niest the fire, in auld red rags,
Ane sat, weel brsc'd wi' mealy bags,
And knapsack a* in order ;
His doxy lay within his arm,
Wi' usquebae an* blankets warm-
She blinket on her sodger :
An' aye he gies the tousie drab
The tither skelpin' kiss.
While she held up her greedy gab
Just like an a'mous dish.
Ilk smack did crack still.
Just like a cadger's whip,
Then staggering and swaggering
He roar'd this ditty up—
AXft.
Tiui»-*«SoUUei'sJoy.';
1.
I AM a son of Mars who have been in many
wars.
And show my cuts and scars wherever I come ;
This here was for a wench, and that other in n
trench,
When wclcombg the French at the sound of
the drum.
Lai de dandle, Stc
ir.
My 'prenticeship I past where my leader
breath'd his last.
When the bloody die was cast on the heights of
Abram ;
I served out my trade when the galUnt game
was play'd.
And thp Moro low was laid at the sound of the
drum.
Lai de daudle, lee*
HI.
I lastly was with Curtis, among the floBting
batt'ries,
And there I left for witness an arm and a limb ;
Yet let my country need me, with Elliot to
head me,
rd clatter my stumps at the sound of the drum.
Lai de daudle, ttc
IV.
And now tho* I must beg with t woodaft im
and leg,
And mpny % tatter*d riif bulging 0TcriD|rb«ii^
POEMS.
ftai ti litppy with my trallct, my lottle lad
my callet,
At wlien 1 us*d in learlet to follow t dram.
Lai de daudle, kc,
V.
What tho* with hotry luokt, I mint stand the
Winter sboGkn,
Beneath the woods ami rocks often times for a
home,
When the tother bog I sell, and the tother
bottle tell,
1 could meet a troop of hell, at the soond of
the drum.
Lol de daudle, Itc.
aCClTATIYO.
Re ended ; and the kebars sheuk,
Aboon the chorus roar ;
While frighted rattans backward Ieuk«
And seek the benmost bore ;
A f«iry fiddler frae the neuky
He skirl'd out encore !
But up arose the martial chnck.
And laid the loud uproai;
A».
ThHi#-" Soldier Liddlt.'
I OUCK was a maid, tho* I cannot tell when.
And still my delight is in proper yonng men ;
Some one of a troop of dragoons wu my daddie,
Vo wonder Fm fond of a sodger laddie.
Sing, Lai de lal, &C.
IL
The first of my lores was t swaggering blade,
To rattle the thundering drum was his trade ;
lib leg was so tight, and his cheek was so
ruddy.
Transported I was with my sodger laddie.
Sing, Lai (k lal, Stc
m.
But the godly old chaplain left him in the lurch,
The sword I forsook for the sake of the churchy
He ventur'd the soul, and I risked the body,
*Twas then I prov'd false to my sodger laddie.
Sin^, Lai de lal, &c.
IV.
Full soon I grew sick of my sanctified sot,
The regiment at large for a husband I got ;
From the gilded spontoon to the fifo I was
ready,
I asked no more but a sodger hddie.
Sing, Lal de lal, &&
V.
But the peace it reduc*d me to beg in despair,
Till T met my old b(»y at Cunoingham fAir |
His rag reffinuniai they flattctf'd so gtndy»
My heart it njoio'd at my sodger loi^ie.
Sing, Lal de lal, tec.
VL
And now I hsva liv*d.— I know not how bdg«
And still I can join in a cup or a song ;
But whilst with both hands I can hold the glMl
steMly,
Here's to thee, my hero, my sodger laddie.
Sing, Lal de Ld, kc.
KSCITATIVO.
Then nieit ontspak a raucle etrlirt«
Wha kent sae weel to deck the sCerlingf
For monie a pursie she had hooked.
And had in mony a well been ducked.
Her dove had been a Highland laddie,
But weary fa* the waefu* woodie !
Wi* sighs and sobs she thus began
To wul bet braw John Highlandi
Alft.
2^iiif^' O laP y« were dead*
A HiGRLAVD lad my bnre was bom,
Tht Lalland lews ha hsU in aooni ;
But he stiU was fidthfu' to his daily
My gallant braw John Highlandmsn.
CBOEOt.
Sing, hey my braw John Highlandmaa !
Sing, ho my braw John Htghlandmaa !
There's not a lad in a' the Ian'
Was nutch for my John Highlsndman,
IL
With his philibeg an' tartan platd,
An' gude claymore down by his side^
The ladies hearts he did trepan.
My gallant braw John Highlandman,
Sing, hey, lee.
m.
We rannd a' firom Tweed to Spey,
An* Ur d like lords and ladies gay ;
For a Lalland focc he feared none.
My gallant braw John Highlandman*
Sing, hey, &c
IV.
They banish'd hhn beyond the sea,
But ere the bud was on the tree,
Adown my cheeks the pearls ran.
Embracing my John Highlandman.
Sing, hey, Ice
V.
But, oh ! they tatch'd him at the Ust|
And bound him in a dongeoa £ist ^
fiUENff WORKS.
Siiig^hey, See.
VL
And BOW A widow, I most BMNm
The pkavH thtt wiU ne'er RCam ;
Xb oomfort but a beerty can,
Vhen I think on John Highlandnm.
Sing^ beyy lea
EBCITATIVO.
A pigmy icnper, wi* hit fiddle,
irtn utd at tiyvts end fiiin to driddk^
Her itnppin lunb and gauty middle
He reachM nae higher»
Had hcltd hie heartie like a riddle,
An* blawn't on fire.
Wi' hand on hannch, an* upward e'e^
He croon'd hie gamnt, one* two, three.
Then in an Arioeo key.
The wee AjfoIIo
Set off wi* Allegretto glee
His giga mIo.
AIK.
Whims ome dM lw« nPt"
Ln me ryke up to dight that tear.
An' go wi me to be my dear.
An' then your every eare and fisar
May whiatie owre the lave e't.
cBoaus.
I am a fiddler to my trade,
An' a' the tunea that e'er I play'd.
The aweetaat atiU to wi£e or maid,
Waa whittle owre the lave o't.
n.
At kima and weddiqga we'ae be there,
An' O ! aae niody'a we will hrt ;
We'll bouae about till Daddie Care
Singa whiatie owre the lave o't.
lam, Ice.
m.
8ae merrily the banea we'll pyke,
An' sun ounela about the dyke.
An' at our leiaure, when we like.
We'll whiatie owre the lare o't.
lam, &C.
IV.
Bat bleaa me wi' your heaven o' charma»
And while I kittle hair on thairma,
Mmagtr, eauldj an a aick harma.
May whiatie ovm the lave o't.
I am, fcc.
Her charma had atmck i^atardy OM|
Aa weelaapoor Gntenper;
He take the fiddler by the beard,
And drawa a maty nqner—
He awoor by a* waa awearing worth.
To apeet him like a pliver,
Unleaa he wonld from that time figrth,
Relinquiah her fiw ever.
Wi' ghaady e*e, poor tweedle dee
Upon hu hunkera bended.
And pray'd for grace wi' ruefd' &oa^
And aae the quarrel ended.
But though hia little heart did grieve.
When round the tinkler preat her,
He feign'd to snirtle in Lis sleeve.
When thus the caird addreas'd her.
AIR.
T^nie— *' Clout the Caldron.*
I.
Mt bonnie loss, I work in braaa,
A tinkler ia my utation ;
I've traveli'd round all Christian ground
In this my occupation.
I've ta'en the gold, I've been enroll'd
In many a noble aquadron :
But vain they search'd, when off I march^
To go and dout the cauldron*
I've ta'en the gold, %tb
U.
•dimp^
Deapiae that ahrimp, that
Wi' a hia noiae an' caprin*.
An' tak' a ahare wi' thoae that bear
The budget an' the apron.
An' &y that atowp, my &ith and houp^
An' by that dear Keilbagie,*
If e'er ye want, or meet wr aeaat.
May I ne'er weet my cnigie.
An' by that atovp^ Ik.
mKcrPAnvo.
The caird prevail'd — the nnblnahiog fiur
In hia embracea annk.
Partly wi' love o'eroome aae aair.
An' partly ahe waa dnmk.^
Sir Violino, with an air
That ahow'd a man of apnnk,
Wlah'd tntiaon between the pair.
An' made the bottle clunk
To their health that night
But hurchin Cupid ahot a abaft
That play'd a dame a ahavie.
The fiddler rak'd her fore an aft,
Bchint the chicken cavie.
Her lord, a wight o' Homer'a * craft,
Tho* limping with the apavie,
* A peculiar lort of whiikjr io oalkd, agrsat ftvoov-
ite with PoMte-Nande^ clubs.
• HomarisaUoifedtobetheoUBit
POEMS.
65
He lirplM up, tnd Up like daft,
An' ihorM them Daintie Davie
O boot that night
He was a care-defying blade
As ever Bacchus listed,
Though Fortune sair upon him laid,
His heart she ever mias'd it.
He had no wish but — to be glad.
Nor want but — ^when he thirsted ;
He hated nought but^to be sad,
And thus the Muse suggested,
His sang that ni^t.
AIR.
Tune^» ForsT that, anr $f that*
I.
I AM a bard of no regard,
Wi* gentle folks, an* a' that ;
But Homer-Jikef the glowran byke,
Frae town to town I dra\7 that.
CHORUS.
For a* that, an* a that ;
An* twice as meikle^s a* that ;
IVe lost but ane, Tve twa behin',
I've wife enough for a* that.
II.
I never drank the Muse's stank,
CasUlia*H burn, an' a* that ;
But there it streams, and richly reams.
My Helicon 1 ca' that.
For a* that, &c.
III.
Great love I bear to a* the fair.
Their humble slave, an' a' that ;
But lordly will, I hold it still
A mortal sin to thraw that.
For a' that, Sec.
IV.
In raptures sweet, this hour we meet,
Wi' mutual love an* a* that ;
But for how lang theflie may ttamff.
Let inclination law that.
For a* that, kc,
V.
Their tricks and craft have put me daft,
They've ta'cn me in, an* a' that ;
But clear your decks, und here's the s«x /
I like the jads for a' that.
" For a' that, an' a* tint,
• An* twice an nioikle's a* that;
My (loarest bluitl, to do them guid,
Thrv're welcome till't for a' that.
RECriATiva
So sung the bard — and Nansie's wa's
Shook with a thunder of applause,
Re-echo*d from each mouth ;
They toomM ihttr poeki, la' pnr&'d iUr did^
They scarcely left to oo'er Mr foAi,
To quench their lowan drouth.
Then owre again, the jovial thnng,
The poet did request,
To loose his pack an* wile a aug,
A ballad o* the best :
He rising, rgoidng,
Between his twa JMoroib^
Looks round him, an* found thm
Impatient £00: the ehoras. '
.««
S9
JoUjHortdsffllfOar
Skx I the amdcing bowl before ui,
Mark our jovial ragged ring !
Round and round take np the ebonu.
And in raptures let ua aing.
CHORUI.
A fig fior those by law protected!
Liberty'a a glorious feast !
Courts for cowards were erected.
Churches built to please the prieiC
n.
What is title ? what is treasure ?
What is reputatioii'a can ?
If we lead a liib of pleasure,
'Tia no matter how or when /
Afig, &c
m.
With the ready trick and £d>]e.
Round we wander all the day ;
And at night, in bam or stably
Hug our doxies on the hay.
A fig, Sec.
IV.
Does the train-attended corrJo^f
Through the country lighter rove ?
Does the sober bed of marriage
Witnesa brighter scenes of love ?
Afig, Ik.
V.
Life is an a voribncm.
We regard not how it goea ;
Let them cant about dewmm
Who have characters to lose.
Afig, fcc
VL
Here's to the budgets, bags, and walleCi !
Here's to all the wandering train !
Here's our ragged bnU$ and eafiete /
One and all cry out. Amen !
A fig for those by law protected !
Liberty's a glorious feast !
Courts for cowards were eceetad^
Charohae boflt to pkiit the priiil*
BURNS* WOttKS.
THE KtRK'S ALARM:*
A SATIRK.
Oktbodox, orthodoSf wha btlicre in John
Knox,
Let me louad ta alarm to yo«ir comcieoce ;
Tlwr«*t ft heretic blaet hftt been Uawn in the
wtet*
That what h no lenie mmt be noniensie.
Dr. Mae, f Dr. Mac, ytm ftbouM stretch on a
nek,
To itrike evil doen wi* terror ;
To join £uth and aemie upon ony pretence,
Is heretic^ damnable error.
Tovm of Ayr, town of Ayr, it was mad, I de-
clare.
To meddle wP mischief a-brewinf ;
IVovost John is still deaf to the church's relief^
And orator Bob ( is its ruin.
jyrymple mild, $ D*rymple mild, tho* your
heart's like a child,
*" And your li& like the new driven snaw,
Yet that winna sare ye, auld Satan must hare
ye.
For preaching tltat three's one an*'twa.
Bumble John,^ Ramble John, mount the steps
wi* a grosn,
Cry the book is wi* heresy crammM ;
Then lug out yonr ladk, «ieal brimstone like
aille.
And roar erery note of the damn*d.
Kmper James, |{ Simper James, leave the fair
Killie dames,
There's a holier chace in your view ;
rn lay on your head, that the pack yell soon
leid,
Par puppies like yon there's but few.
Singet Sawney,** Singet Sawney, are yt herd-
ing the penny,
tJncooscious what evils await ;
Wi' a jump, yell, ami howl, alarm every soul.
For the foul thief is just at your gate*
DMMy AuM,tf Daddy Auld, there's a tod in
the fauld,
A tod meikle waiir than the clerk ;
The* ye can do little kkaith, >V11 be in at the
death.
Ami if ye canna bite ye may bark.
_ • This poem wai written a short time after ttie pub-
Iwlkw of Mr. M<Ciirs Esny. *^
iMr. M* \U i R-.C A — n.
Dr. D — c. 5 Mr. I
He, N^— <-y. •• Mr,
h Mr. A— d,
A— — n«
5 Mr. R-— JL
ft
Davie Bluster,* Davie Bluster, if ^r • dUt
ye do muster.
The corps is no nice of recmits ;
Yet to worth lets be just, ro)'al blood ye might
boast.
If the a» was tlic king of the brutes.
Jamie GooHe,f Jamie Goosey ye ha'e made but
toom roose*
In hunting tlie wicked lientenant ;
But the Doctor's your mark, for the L d's
haly ark ;
He has cooper *d and cawd a wrang pin ia'L
Pbet Willie, \ Poet WiUie, gie the Doctor a
vulley,
Wi* your liberty's chain and your wit ;
0*er Pegasus' side ye ne'er laiil a stride.
Ye but smelt, uuui, the place where he sh-L
Andro Gouk, 5 Aodru Gouk, }'e may slander
the liook.
And the book not the waur let me tell ye ;
Ye are rich, and look big, but lay b)' hat and
wig.
And ye'U hac a calfs head o' sma' value.
Barr Steetiic, | Barr Stecnie, what mean ye ?
what mean ^-e ?
If ye'U meddle nae mair wi' the matter,
Ye may ha'e some pretence to bavins and sense,
Wi* people wha ken ye nae better.
Irvine side,** Irvine ride, wi' your turkcy-codc
pride,
Of nunhiiod hut sma' is ^-our share ;
Yc've the figure, 'tis true, even your iaes will
allow,
And your friends tlicy dare grant you naa
mair.
Muirland Jock.ff Bluirland Jock, when the
L-~d makes a rock
To cniMh Common Scnw for her sins,
If ill manners were wit, there's no mortal so lit
To confound the poor Doctor at ance.
Holy Will, \\ Holy Will, there was wit i' yoor
skull,
When ye pilfer'd the alms o* the poor ;
The timmer is scant, when ye're u'en for a
saint,
Wha should swing in a rape fur an hour.
Calvin's sons, Calvin's sons, reice )*otur sp'ritcal
guns.
Ammunition ye never can need ;
Your hearts are the stuffy will be powther
enough, .
And your skulls are storehouses o* lead.
• Mr. G . O e. < Mr. Y e, C-
j Mr. I» », A-r. ^ Dr. A. M II.
fMr. 8»— Y— *, D—r, ••Mr.
tMr.i»— -0.
^An
m
POEMS.
Fod dttrtti^ wT your pricrt-ikdp-
iag tnmii
Why d««ert ye your oiild nttive tbire ;
Tour miwe i« a gip»ic> t'ea tho* she wer« tipnci
She could ca* u« nae watir than ve an.
THE TWA HERDS.*
O A* ye pious godly floeki,
Weel fed on pasture** orthodox.
Wha DOW will keep you frae the fox, '
Or worrying tykeCy
Or wha will tent the waifa and crocks.
About the dykes I
The twa best herds in a* the wast.
That e'er ga*e gospel horn a blast,
These five-and-twenty simmers past,
O! dooltotell,
Ha*e had a bitter black out-cast
Atween themseL
O, M y, man, and worthy R— II,
How could you raise so vile a bustle,
Ye'll see how new-light herds will whistle,
An' think it fine !
The Lord's cause ne'er gat sic a twistlc,
Sin* I ha*e min*.
O,' Sirs ! whiM*«r wad hae expeckit,
Your duty ye wad sae negleckit.
Ye wha were ne'er by laird respecklt.
To wear tluB pUud,
But by the brutes themselves eleckit.
To be their guide.
What flock wi* M ^y*s flock could rank,
Sat hale and hearty every shank,
Nae poison'd soor Arminian stank,
He let them taste, •
Frae Calvin's well, aye clear they drank,
O sic a feast !
The thummart, wil*-eat, brock, and tod,
Weel kend his voice thro' a' the wood,
He smelt their ilka hole and road,
Baith out and in.
And weel he lik'd to shed their bluid.
And sell their skin.
What hectl like R U teH'd his tale.
His voice was heard thro' muir and dale,
He kend the Lor 
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